Anytime you need to play a wave file or hear sound from an instrument (whether actual or VST) it's a track. Anytime you need to combine output from several track into a single signal, it's a bus.
Approach those tutorials that way and you should have no problems.

bitflipper
Reaper takes that approach. It does not distinguish between tracks and busses - they're both just destinations. A great idea, IMO. Unfortunately, just about everything else in Reaper felt so awkward to me that I couldn't ever get into it despite repeated attempts.
 
I come from a hardware background, where tracks are tracks and busses are busses. I'm therefore accustomed to thinking of them as fundamentally different kinds of things. Also, I don't use the Console view. Ever. In Track View I can position a bus right under a track if I want to.
 
At the end of the day, I don't consider SONAR's bus implementation to be limited at all.
 
Well, OK, I'd like to be able to freeze busses. Other than that, no complaints.

+100% on all points for me.
 
Of course we'll probably never see frozen buses. Go ahead CW, prove me wrong on that one.

Would be easier to "record the output from a VSTi" in real time if track outputs could be sent to track inputs.

Bvideo Yes exactly.

bitflipper
I come from a hardware background, where tracks are tracks and busses are busses. I'm therefore accustomed to thinking of them as fundamentally different kinds of things.

 
I think several of us used hardware before computers became all the rage, and what the OP is asking is something that many people, including myself, did with a hardware mixer. For example, you have a group of BVGs on 3 or 4 tracks. You send them all to your outboard reverb then return the reverb to a track right next to the vocal tracks, so they are all in the same place on your board. If I understand correctly, that's what the OP wants to do with Sonar.
 
 

bitflipperIn Track View I can position a bus right under a track if I want to.

 
That may be the OP's answer but how do you do that? Because I can't drag a bus out of the bus pane, and I can't insert a bus next to a track.
 
 
 

bitflipperUnfortunately, just about everything else in Reaper felt so awkward to me that I couldn't ever get into it despite repeated attempts.

+1
 

Agree with those that like the track / bus distinction. My recording adventures began with analog desks so it fits my approach like a glove.
 
I would however like to be able to save & load Bus Presets in a similar manner to Track presets.
 
I'd use these to switch round summing setups (e.g. Waves NLS, Prochannel Console emulations), small sets of monitoring buses and other composite effects (e.g. reverbs & delays that crossfeed into each other).
 
Anyone else feel the need for bus presets ?

I guess a "track preset" is a track template. If that is the case, buses can be saved in track templates. A track template does require at least one track so a dummy track would have to be saved when creating a "bus only" track template.

In the case of the OP this is just a nomenclature issue. Aux's in PT are the same as our busses. Heck, PT refers to a Master as a track. Because there is a lack of distinction between tracks and busses Pro Tools has a much more workable relationship with a control surface. Sonar/Xx is lacking in that department in my opinion. I prefer to have every fader available on my control surface whether it's a channel, bus or main output. 
 
From an engineering standpoint I see places where signals combine as busses but the other analogy in this thread about sending a group to an effect and returning it to a channel/track is also a real world approach too.

Yes the return or bus outs could be expanded to return to a new track! 

I've never seen this as an issue but a lot of useful ideas have been brought up in this thread. There are some valid feature requests here. I would like the flexibility to send tracks to other tracks and/ or move buses into the track area of the console view.
 
Rocky