Thanks to the three of you for your responses: I was hoping someone would say "Yes I know what you mean and this is how you fix it...". But like some dude said a long time ago, "You can't always get what you want...".
As for your suggestion Robh, I'll set up a little experiment to investigate that idea. Meanwhile, two suggestions for anyone else having to deal with the problem:
1. Pay attention to the bar number where you're editing so that returning isn't such a pain.
2. If you're going to be doing a fair bit of work in a particular spot, whack in a marker before you start or at the first occurence, to make returning as easy as possible.