[SimonN]

Not sure that I understand your first question - do you mean that you wish to be able to do a "change all" on the automation on all tracks except for one or a few that are "locked"?
If that is what you´re looking for, I think this passage in the ref. guide is for you:


To suspend automation for individual controls on a track:

1 In the Edit window, set the Track View selector to show the automation playlist for the control you want to suspend.

2 Do one of the following:
• To suspend writing and playback of auto- mation for only the displayed control, Control-click (Windows) or Command- click (Mac) the control name in the Track View selector.
• To suspend writing and playback of auto- mation for all controls, Control-Shift-click (Windows) or Command-Shift-click (Mac) the name of any control in the Track View selector.
• To suspend writing and playback of auto- mation for a specific control on all tracks, Control-Alt-click (Windows) or Command- Option-click (Mac) the name of the control in the Track View selector.


As far as question #2 goes, I see your agony there, have done that myself a couple of times. That has led me to do "deactivate and hide" on tracks I don´t use, but there are times when I want a track to be visual and more accessible than the deactivate and hidden ones, so I am also curious about how other users go about this problem!


Hope that helps a bit,

Simon