Hi Neil,
As you say There's a lack of a full written manual and this is not only the case for Audition but for all software in Adobe or any other producer of programs. It has been always the last thing developers do because it is not something considered as a value adding feature to their capacities. And the guys are wrong! I mentioned that on an earlier forum here and when I was in a company developing financial software, I had to struggle with my developers to have a full clear and precise user's manual for my customers. I've used Audition for years long before Adobe acquired it from Syntrillium a PHX based company who created it under the name COOL EDIT PRO, there was a lighter version COOL EDIT. The ergonomy of the program has been radically changed and really was that necessary? I wonder....Perhaps I'm stupid but I prefer to work with a waveform presentation than the spectral and as said above many tools can't be used if you're not in this situation. Why should I switch to multitrack to be able to use the razor, when I do not intend to do a multitrack job, but just eliminate part of my audio? All this doesn't make sense and the result is a waste of time searching for hours! On the other hand you see Speedgrade with the worst ergonomy and color characters I've ever seen in my 40 years of using computers and programs and no effort up to this day is done to change that. One can write requests on the dedicated forums, it's like p...in a violin! (I don't want to be rude!).
"It's a known problem ... without a known solution."...Yes there is a solution:
A/ Don't put online a new program the company has acquired before it is fully ergonomically in line with your other programs; that would save
a lot of time for the users who have acquired reflexes with the previous ones. For a few month forget immediate return on investments and shareholders who think that the solution to profit is increase in sales and not on cash-flows! If you sale products which discourage users to use them your sales going up for a few months will plummet and your cash-flows and resulting earnings with them. Bye Bye Dividends !
B/ Have a dedicated team to develop the user's manual and acting as if they were the final users.They'll put themselves in the user's minds. They'll get the reflexes of the way a user works, can check with the way they work and won't be overwhelmed by programming considerations which are totally a different problem. In short you can't be on both sides of the line at the same time. It's just common sense but as we all know it's the least thing used in a brain by people!