Thank you for the explanation. I stand corrected.
However, this could all be summed up to instrument tracks not receiving/sending midi. Also, since we’re talking about ways to enhance instr. tracks, I’d like to ad the obvious one; making them support multitimbral instruments (similar to a folder track; having the multitimbral instr. track open up to reveal the XX separate channels, for example). Rack presets are a good idea, but it wouldn’t be much of a time-saver without loading the connected midi channels/audio channel effects. So it would be only a semi-solution IMO.
In the end, both have advantages, depending on the way of working, but I’ve found from experience that many cubase users avoid instr. tracks for no real reason other than habit and, sometimes, ignorance. Hence the reason to, one again, point out the advantages they offer, hoping more will try them out and learn the benefits for themselves. Steinberg gave us instr. tracks not to simplify cubase for newcommers, but to make working with vsti’s faster and more intuitive. And IMO they succeeded for the most part.
Still, they’re not perfect, but if SB continues to work on them, they could soon be better than the vst rack in most scenarios.