Regarding using a MIDI track, you are correct, that does work. However, it seems unnecessarily complex to create a midi track, draw midi events, trying to remember which CC number corresponds to which command, then testing it out to make sure it works. If you come back to a song after several months, it will not be at all obvious what those midi events do just from looking at them. What would be much simpler, IMO, is a marker track or command track that allows you to explicitly place commands at specific points on the timeline. You could then see very quickly from looking at that track what commands are where. Camelot Pro has something similar in their Marker track, although the available markers are pretty basic - Stop or Play only.
Regarding the metronome, I explained it in more detail here: How Do You Run the Metronome Without the Transport Running? - #9 by tombo86
Which you probably saw since you were also on that thread, but in a nutshell:
- we are not playing to a click track
- the backing tracks often come in mid-song, not at the start
- The portion of the song before the backing tracks come in will be performed freeform, but should be at close to the tempo of the tracks.
- I am the only one that can see the metronome display
So, the simplest solution would be for the metronome to run visually (I leave the click off) when the transport is stopped. Here again, Camelot Pro does this, although that app has its own issues.