It is working as it was intended. The original hv version of cinelerra exhibits this behavior.
That is, the drag selection is all armed tracks that are aligned under the cursor at the
drag start. When a track is disarmed, it is not modified and the timeline association is lost.
There is an editing function in the "edit" pulldown menu called "align edits" that I use to
re-align edits, but I agree that it is not always easy or convenient to do that.
Just yesterday, the latest build was pushed. It contains a new feature (that is still being
engineered, and some changes may occur soon) which allows you to create temporary
or more permanent clip associations as "groups". See Features5.pdf, section 47.
If you do try this new version, and think you have any valuable suggestions, let us know
since the new feature is still being finalized.
gg