This is timely for me as I’ve been discussing this issue with some friends lately. (with respect to audio; I do barely any MIDI.)
For me Cubase’s (old) lanes behavior was perfect, and super elegant. I’ve found PT8’s playlist features lacking in comparison; the Cubase way was automatic and simple and fast. It was great for building a comp out of 6 similar vocal takes but also for building a comp out of a dozen radically different guitar solos that you were chopping and reassembling.
So I had to laugh when I saw this in Sound on Sound’s Cubase 6 review:
I was like “Wait! They have it all backwards! And I love Cubase lanes and I never use cycle recording!”
Anyway, the new implementation has confused me a lot so far – regions get auto-un-muted as I select them; scissors don’t work well when multiple takes have different phrasings; etc.
I’m not interested in the inevitable internet fight that’s happening in this thread, but I really loved the old feature. It never seemed unwieldily or confusing to me. I guess it was different than other DAWs, but I always found it to be better.