Damn good idea Brian!

I also agree automation lanes are better now than they ever were.

I have not tried to comp with midi trks yet. Will have to.give it a shot.

I love the lanes for audio coming.

Takes lanes - fantastic.
Automation lanes - perfect! 

Please forgive me for jumping in here; I'm not an old hand, but I think there's a basic misunderstanding of how take lanes work and how comping and bouncing work within take lanes.
 
I think the key to understanding take lanes is to put what you know about layers out of your mind. Very little, if any, of that workflow applies any more. They may look similar, but the behavior is quite different.
 
If I may, I'd like to suggest grabbing the Groove3 "Sonar X3 Explained" videos (still on sale for $15 until midnight). Videos 26 and 27 cover take lanes quite well. I came to X3 directly from X1, so I had never seen take lanes before and I was pretty confused. Those videos cleared things up for me.
 
 
 

Damn you, you just forced me to buy a year pass for Groove3 :)

Alex, it is money well spent.

;)

Thank you all for your feedback! It's interesting to see how little many know about these behaviors in Take Lanes. Since the feature is still half-baked (at least for me), I'll just use the main track (without enabling the Expand/Collapse button) and bounce clips every time after I recorded additional takes. I didn't mind about Sonar not being able to automatically merge new takes into the existing clip, but now I'm really starting to want the feature, so I'll send in a FR. Also, I'll keep using other tracks (not lanes) as a place to stock ideas.
 
As for the track layer feature in X1, I never really looked at it in detail because at that time I was very busy learning various other new features in X1 (because I upgraded from v2.2) and also learning how to use anther daw (Studio One) I bought then (because X1b was so unstable...). So now, I've just launched X1 and tried track layers, but they also aren't what I'd like to use. Because, as the screeshots below indicate, when the layers are collapsed, the muted clip and layer are both still displayed.
 

 

 
If you also use Studio One or have used it before, you probably know what I'm talking about here. I'm sure some bakers are reading this thread (or will read it on Monday), and since some of them also use S1, I hope they'll understand my points and improve Take Lanes again in X4 (I've already submitted requests for improvement about the muted clips still showing up in the main track, the lane height limitation, etc.).

Bristol_Jonesey
I can replicate the OP's screenshot perfectly - except for the lighter shade of grey in the Track header and the Take Lanes header

 
It's the light gray color that's in the "Other" color palette

CakeAlexS
Never heard of "base edition", is there are link somewhere on exactly what's in it?
What about guitar, keyboard and vocal editions? ;).
Anyway I digress, ignore me.

 
Well, I can't ignore because I'm an English learner (so if you get no reaction from me after posting a joke, don't worry, it's not because you're not funny -- it's just that I don't understand the joke ) and want to know the correct way to describe things.
 
It's off topic but "base version" is correct and "base edition" is wrong because "base" isn't a name of an edition like "Producer" or "Studio"? In that case I'll update my signature block.

I often wonder if just asking "What version of Sonar are you using?" is enough because the response can be both "I'm using X2" and "I'm using Producer." What about when the question is "What edition of X3 are you using?" Can I say "I'm using the base edition"?
 
Anyway, if you just mistakenly read "base" as "bass," just ignore me. 

> and improve Take Lanes again in X4
So three versions before it's gotten right :) I would like to see these issues sorted in X3E to be honest, this is at the heart of the system (unlike video for instance).