Using Merge Clip Separates The Stereo Audio Track Into Two Mono Tracks

Thanks R Neil! I will definitely take both your and Buck's advice next time. But for now, i think i'm past the point of no return. Our feature film is close to being locked for picture and i'm about to embark on color and audio mixes. I don't think there's a way to reverse engineer my entire edit to fix my merged clip mistake. So what can i do now? 

To be clear: every clip of dialogue in every scene has two mirrored tracks of audio. For example, A1 and A2 are identical. You can see in the audio meter that they are 'twins', always striking the same level precisely. Because each only has one waveform, each track appears to be Mono.

Can i safely delete A2 throughout? I've been doing digging/experimenting and the pros and cons of that:

Pros:

-when i right click on either clip, it says that the clip is Stereo. 

-The levels reflect that as well. When i delete the clip on A2, clip A1 still shows a left and right level in the audio monitor/audio levels. 

Cons:

-when i delete A2, you can hear a reduction in loudness and see about a 6db drop in the levels.

While I'm concerned that i'd be "losing" audio volume or fullness, i ran a test of duplicating a random audio track and placing it on the tracks below it. Each time you add a track, the sound and levels increase. 

That makes me wonder if my audio has been artifically loud this entire time? So although it seems i'm losing volume by deleting A2, it was never supposed to be that loud in the first place. And therefore, just the one A1 track alone is the proper representation of what was recorded on set and i should be confident in losing its 'twin' A2. 

Thoughts/insights?

Thank you!!

-Rob