Hi
Version 2.41..... You should be able easily to cut sound clips as follows...
Go into timeline mode.
Put your video onto the sequence line. Its audio will appear immediately underneath on the Audio track.(as you know 
) but it will have no effect on how other Sound tracks behave.(It will play of course but you can mute it if required)
Now Drag/drop your music/sounds/dialogue onto Soundtrack 1.
If this is a single sound clip you are adding and the track was empty beforehand, you can drag it left or right along the track and place it where you want. To cut it....Move the cursor (or play the sequence) to the point where you want the sound track split.
You can now cut it at the cursor position using the split button (looks like a railway signal) in the soundtrack1 box on the extreme left. (I seldom use the IN/OUT option)
If the clip was activated (blue) then the right hand part of the sound clip will now go white.
You should now be able to move (drag) the right hand section of the clip to the right, leaving a space, or if required, you can split it further along in the same way by moving the cursor along and repeating the steps above.
You can remove any part of the sound clip by activating it (right clicking it--it goes blue) and selecting to "Remove selected audio" You won't be able to move the middle section along however until you move the right hand section along but you can drag it up or down to another empty Soundtrack from where you can move it along over the bits you have left
Now, if you try to drop a sound clip into a space too small for it, it will push anything to the right along the sequence but will butt up against the portions to the left.(There is an option under "Other" to alter this behaviour however) The problem here is that it simply pushes along all the clips to the right and in doing so obliterates any gaps between clips you have already there (possiblr carefully placed in synch 
.)
Its better to add any new sound to an empty Soundtrack where you can better position it and cut it
If a sound clip is too long then you don't need to cut it. Just grab the end of the clip and drag this back into the clip (or along into the clip if you are working from the left) . The clip will shorten but will remain in position, while a gap will be created between it and the next clip.
Note: You can't cut your main audio track without unlinking it from the video first and then left clicking it once so it moves fractionally to the right. If you don't do this you will split the video track as well. (The unlinked sound has to be moved a bit, the left click does this.
Nat