I kept telling the “Status Line” it was not wanted. I saved project, saved workspace, closed cubase and reopen. And there it was again. It had zero use and it was in prime real estate.
Finally realized it kept coming back with one option highlighted, something like “set up studio” . Picked some outputs to satisfy it, then the status line finally would stay hidden. Now, oddly, the status line no longer shows Outputs and Inputs, it begins with “Record Time Max”.