Quick disable/mute recording inputs

Might just be how I've got my templates set up, but I often find myself wishing I could quickly disable all recording inputs and re-enable them again when needed. Or maybe even toggle internal routing vs external inputs on a per-recording-input basis. That way, I could use the same mixer channel for recording and playback of recorded audio, and simply disable either the external or internal audio as required for what I want to hear/record.

So this kind of workflow:
- Audio recorded into mixer channel 5; recorded audio also routed to this mixer channel.
- FX on the channel
- When external audio is playing and 'monitoring enabled', only hear/record the external input (ie not the generators/mixer channels routed to channel 5)
- When internal audio is playing and 'monitoring disabled', only hear/record the internal inputs (ie not the external audio)
- Sometimes you want to hear only what you've recorded, so you'd 'disable monitoring'
- Other times you only want to hear what's coming out of the synth, so you'd 'enable monitoring'
- I feel like there may be times you want to hear both, which isn't accounted for by simply having a toggle like the above, so perhaps there is a cleverer way than I've thought of do this!

I guess I could rig this up using a mixer channel for each input with a control panel that controls a Mute on each, but this requires an extra mixer channel per input, and would be better built into the UI somehow.. perhaps there is already some easier workflow for multitracking that I am missing?

Related to this functionality would be to allow the MIDI Out plugin to be assigned a mixer channel and audio or instrument track - eg if you know the MIDI Out plugin plays Synth X, which is recorded back in on mixer channel 5, I think it becomes possible to treat the external instrument the same as an internal generator for purposes of connecting together the channel rack, playlist and mixer together and syncing track names, recording the audio into correct track in playlist, etc?

Cheers