A very useful feature of Logic is called “Strip Silence”. It’s something like a manoal noise gate: You enter a certain threshold, and every part of a region where the audio level is below this value will be deleted. You can also specify how much of the region before and after the stripped signal is left, also the length of the fade-in and fade-out.
The problem with noise gates is that some samples at the start of the stripped signal (e.g. bass drum) are still muted, causing a loss of attack.
I’d like to see this feature in Ardour, too. Who else?