<< Charlie, I think the issue is, you do not see a specific wish as a limitation, but a "problem that needs to be solved at any means." Seems, that if it is achievable, even if not in a particular way, that wish request was presented, it "becomes" invalidated. >>
True for this specific eleven year old wish revived by Pipeline to promote his direct file access idea but it's true only as it applies to versions prior to 2021 BIAB. When this wish was posted in 2010, Pipeline's direct file access concept for BIAB did not exist. Recording Audio and Performance Tracks did not exist. "Isolate what measures to generate", "Enable Audio Edit for RealTracks", and "Unfreeze/regenerate one bar on one channel" were valid wishes in 2010.

The workaround strictly for audio editing is, and always has been, exporting RealTracks into DAWs. The BIAB Audio Editor is on par with any and every DAW and audio editor program for editing and comping RealTracks. Since audio recording/editing and Performance Tracks were implemented in BIAB and all of BIAB's features remain accessible, it's normally easier, faster and better than any other method.
It is by no definition a workaround. It is a native feature of BIAB but users choose to continue to use a DAW that in most cases, they were familiar with its operation before they ever purchased BIAB. Makes sense to me they would do that, it's comfortable.

From 2014/15 forward, the problem was solved by PG Music even if not by the particular way the wish request was presented. RealTracks could be edited using the BIAB Audio Editor and RealTrack one bar regeneration became possible solely within the BIAB program with no external software necessary. The above wishes are valid pertaining to RealBand and the PGPlugin VST. Neither RealBand or the PGPlugin VST are full featured BIAB products and both lack many BIAB features and are just light editions of BIAB.

Pipeline's wish for Direct File Access is necessary to be included in the BIAB program so it's accessible to other PG Music products and will improve interaction between PG Music products and external DAW and audio software programs and aid PGMusic future product development. Read through my posts and you'll see that I support Direct File Access.

Pipeline chose the wrong eleven year old wish to revive. Direct File Access has no effect on audio editing in BIAB. RealBand, PGPlugin and future development is another topic and Direct File Access is a great idea. I'm like you, "whether this is achievable or not, I do not know. Seems if it is, it will take BIAB to another level." Regardless of that outcome, it will have zero effect on editing audio or comping a track from multiple generations of a RealTrack in BIAB.

Pipeline's allegation that audio editing, regeneration and comping tracks creates multitudes of WAV files filling up the hard drive is nonsense. A comp track created in BIAB using 5 generations of individual RealTracks, Chords, bars and regions created in BIAB only needs to render the final edited WAV file. Freezing the generated Mixer Tracks and making a Comp Chart in the Song Memo page retains all of the necessary data for those tracks in the SGU file. That's a smaller file than a similar project saved in Reaper and much smaller than a saved RealBand SEQ file. Even if the original WAV file is lost. The frozen track data and song memo and SGU file can be used to recreate the comped file.

I've attached screen shots of the 79.2Kb SGU File image of the SGU main page. The 9.67 WAV file and the Song Memo Comp Summary.

Attached Files (Click to download or enlarge) (Only available when you are logged in)
12 Bar Solo Comp SGU File.png (271.56 KB, 71 downloads)
This SGU results in a saved file of only 79.2Kb and has data to accurately recreate each frozen RealTrack to reconstruct or edit the Comp Track.
WAV File.png (6.5 KB, 71 downloads)
The Comped Utility Track creates a 0.28 second, 12 Bar WAV file of 9.67MB. It can be imported back into the project for editing.
Song Memo.png (25.59 KB, 71 downloads)
The Comp Summary can save the tracks and bars sequences selected and copied from the 5 RealTracks pasted to the Utility Track.
BIAB Ultra Pak+ 2024:RB 2024, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.