Roxio Jam 6 crossfades; how to pause and how to "prefer" types of crossfades

I've recently purchased Jam 6 and have encountered some difficulties in
using it, when compared to an older version (2.6) which was relatively
easy to use. I'd think that later versions should be even easier to use
than older ones, but I may be wrong.

I'm especially frustrated by the way that the application appears to
insist upon changing the type of a crossfade (ie. from a
straightforward simple "splice" of 2 songs, as represented by the "X"
type of fade, as shown in the furthermost left of the crossfade
options, to one involving an automatic generic fade out of the first
track and fade in of the following track) as soon as a change is made
in the timing of the crossfade. This results in having to manually
re-drag the handles of the fade "angles" every time the length of a
crossfade is adjusted, for no apparent reason. There is no setting in
the Preferences panel so as to permit a default type of crossfade,
avoiding this needless activity.

Also, there does not appear to be a simple keyboard command which would
permit a pause when listening to a crossfade in the crossfade window
(ie. using the space bar, as is the case when listening outside of the
crossfade window).

Am I missing something here? I have no idea why an application would
regress to a more difficult user face several versions after an earlier
one.

Much thanks for any suggestions,
Paul