Profiles with playback positions don't report the time unless I double click on the track in the playlist, track advance doesn't update at all.
I'm not sure what you mean by "profiles with playback positions" here. What formatting fields are you trying to use, specifically? None of the %_time_*% fields will work unless you are in now playing mode, or have selected the currently playing track in follow cursor mode.
I understand the need for it to be posible to see the selected track info as well as the currently playing info... possibly could there be a set of tags for currently selected and then currently playing? you could then have 2 instances of track info running with info panels set up for each task? yes? no?
I added the %_trackinfo_dropped%, %_trackinfo_followcursor% and %_trackinfo_nowplaying% tagz for that purpose - so you can use a different formatting for each mode that the panel supports. They're intended to be used like this:
$if(%_trackinfo_nowplaying%,
//
// we are in playing mode
// formatting string for now playing mode goes here
//
,
$if(%_trackinfo_followcursor%,
//
// formatting for follow cursor mode goes here
//
,
$if(%_trackinfo_dropped%,
//
// formatting code for dropped files goes here
//
,)))
As for multiple instances, when that's done, you will be able to set up each panel independently. Plus a default configuration to fall back on I guess.