bitflipper
SONAR is and always has been modeled after the classic recording setup, where tracks are tracks and busses are busses and no one would ever confuse the two.
 
Personally, I like it that way.
 
There are, however, good arguments for Reaper's approach in which there is no distinction between a track and a bus. They've cut the cord to the old paradigm. Those of us who started out with tape and consoles are a dwindling minority now, so it doesn't really make sense to keep up the (increasingly tortured) analogy anymore.

It does work well enough. It has served me well.

 
I think the primary old school paradigm that's being broken is the expectation that buses will have lots of inputs. If you're using buses for reverb, headphone mixes, etc. then having them stuck in the middle of a bunch of tracks is arguably more chaotic then having them segregated into their own little world. But if you're using buses in a more tactical fashion, like the example I gave above of using multiband processing (or what happens a lot with remixes), separating them from the sources complicates matters considerably. If I want to do multiband processing with three tracks, and do my usual four-band separation, that's 12 buses I have to deal with....it would be more convenient to put them in track folders, although the "super bus" workaround mentioned previously helps a lot.
 

I must admit I find it a little confusing in Pro Tools videos where they're freely mixing the buses up with the tracks. And I speak as someone who has no "old school" experience with consoles. 
 
I don't find the separation inconvenient like TMG does. If it's just the strip controls you're looking to adjust (fader, pan, mute, solo etc), then the inspector has both the track and its send bus side by side. If you have more than one send, then clicking on the relevant send controls on the track will make that bus appear next to the track. Try it. 
 
And if you want to edit their respective ProChannels side by side then you can do that in the console view by positioning the track to the left of the curtain, and the bus to the right. 

Thanks guys. Some really helpful insight there. I think maybe I came across in a way I did not intend to - don't get me wrong, most of the time I really like having the busses separate from the tracks. For the purposes of, for example, sending the drum kit ultimately through a single bus it's brilliant. But I would love to have the option of doing something like Razorwit mentioned because I sometimes use busses to create an entirely new 'part' where it makes more sense in my head to have it right alongside all the other 'parts'. Of course, it's entirely possible that if I had the functionality I'd end up just banging my head on the desk in confusion, but I'd like to be free to try it out. robert_e_bone I'd be really keen to know what that third party app was if you don't mind taking the time to find out, much appreciated.
 
Anderton I find myself using the 'super bus' idea quite a lot (for example sending all of my synths through a bunch of dark corners and then finally to one bus!), it's great for quick and easy control of what would end up as the 'stems' I guess.
 
Sharke your post enlightened me to something as I rarely find myself using the inspector for much more than naming clips etc.. I will definitely check that out because it may well go towards solving my irritation.

I have never used screensets being a novice with X3, but would it be possible to have 1 screenset of the console with just the tracks, and another console screenset with just the buses floating above it?

bitflipper
SONAR is and always has been modeled after the classic recording setup, where tracks are tracks and busses are busses and no one would ever confuse the two.
 
Personally, I like it that way.

 
+1, my thoughts exactly.
I use another DAW on occasion that does things the "new way"... I just end up moving things around and color coding them so they are kept separate.
 

TMG
Sharke your post enlightened me to something as I rarely find myself using the inspector for much more than naming clips etc.. I will definitely check that out because it may well go towards solving my irritation.

I've only recently started taking advantage of all the Inspector has to offer (took me a while, eh?). It has many unique talents that complement Console and Track views.

Wad Bittflipper wrote.
 
Buttttttttt
  
Sonar the Reaper way sorta:
 
Should be:
A track folder has changeable default property settings 
Can be set to output/send all tracks in folder to same bus // separate buses, no bus
When a track folder is created it creates a "track-folder" bus, according to the track-folder defaults
Then All tracks/lanes added/copied to the folder will output to the designated bus and sends of the folder
Or create a new bus for the new track
Or not
 
 

Personally I find the Sonar way quite restrictive. Either it could be like Pro Tools (can arrange the buses in with tracks), or Reaper (tracks and buses are pretty much the same), or Logic (you can treat a track folder much like a bus), but to not have any of those options and therefore to have all grouped processing done away from the tracks themselves is a hassle for me.