Well, I've managed to sort the automation related issues out - seems like VE doesn't like receiving Volume automation on separate MIDI channels.
However, I'm seeing crashes about every couple of hours - sometimes when I open the VE GUI, ocassionally instantiating an instrument etc. - not really any particular pattern
I'm happy to send crashlogs in if somebody wants to look at them, or I can post them here.
It would be nice if we could at least get some kind of response on these issues.
Thanks
Jules