Ripple Insert

That's what I suspected. Multitrack view is virtual; if you clicked on somewhere in a clip and tried to do that it wouldn't achieve anything, because that's not a 'real' file - in that mode all it's doing is playing a file, or selectively playing a part of it. What you would require is somehow for this file to have something inserted into it, so that instead of just playing, it's being violated - which is a whole different kettle of fish. This is why Punch and Roll works the way it does; it doesn't violate an existing file but adds a new one over the top of it. Changing this behaviour would be far from simple, and a lot of users would regard it as potentially dangerous. And they'd be correct in that view.

To implement it at all without causing the violation wouldn't be impossible - but you could only do this by an automated extension to multitrack behaviour. Let me explain. At present, as you realise, Punch and Roll effectively records as many new takes as you want, and you have to select the one you want and insert it manually. Now, if there was a system that let you select the take you wanted, and automatically ripple-insert that into the file underneath, you would have achieved the same effect as a ripple insert without violating any files - you've just put a split in the track underneath and extended it by the length of the new track you want to insert. Since the developers regard intact files as sacrosanct, that's almost certainly the only way they'd entertain it. And on the face of it, that's not a bad solution - as long as you allow the option not only to extend the clip, but also the timeline as an option... do you see why this isn't necessarily simple yet?

The alternative - to be able to do this in Waveform view. This is a more realistic proposition in many ways, as recording isn't direct to file but to a temp file, also with options to 'undo' things. I think that it would be relatively straightforward to alter the present overwrite behaviour so that it inserted instead - but even that isn't a straightforward bit of coding either.

Also, I'm afraid that getting a few votes together is nowhere in it. In terms of added facilities, Adobe listens primarily to what the big ticket users say - and these are the institutions where the seats run into at least the hundreds of thousands. And yes there are several of those around the world. With everybody else, they'll tell you that they'll add it to the backlog of suggestions. What they won't tell you is that it will be right at the bottom of a large heap. Even to get the present Punch and Roll system in there took over a decade; don't hold your breath.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is a bad idea - far from it. I'm just trying to inject a little realism, based on over 20 years of observing what happens, and sometimes finding out why...