Hi Michael! The problems you are describing have been well hashed out already, in this topic and in other topics on meta. My sense is that the discourse team are happy enough with the current functionality for now and that any further development on this is probably dependent on paid customer interest or is pr-welcome.
It’s not a high priority for me but I’d like to see a URL method for starting discobot tracks that can be added to the hamburger menu and used in messages to people, as well as the ability for mods to just go ahead and start tracks on behalf of other members. What @JagWaugh aptly called the “bot bazooka”.