1. Yes you could Ctrl + drag to copy and Shift + drag and it does a quick direct copy/move clone of audio & midi without that dialog with all the options and if you use ctrl+c or ctrl+x it will give the options dialog ?

2. I try to mention Biab as much as possible in that DAW forum.
Yes that's what I have done in Audition with vocal takes, it's better with clip non destructive editing than as you say volume lane automation is fiddly but with clip automation you can move it around and still retain the automation. So would you just have this for recorded or imported audio files or the RealTrack clip sections also ? would you need to reference the source files or would it create a copy of them in a folder the same name as the "my song.SGU" "my song_files" when saved ? or like the DAW give an option ?
In that DAW I can load all the RealTrack source file sections into the track and lengthen or shorten each clip giving more creative control so having the RealTracks as clip sections as well would be good but I hope we don't frighten PG off with these suggestions.
It should be like this in RealBand, I suggested the the volume automation in RealBand as it would of been too much of an ask at the time for anything more as it was hard enough to get that.