By saving the virtual instrument preset with its parameters adjusted as you like/need them to be at the beginning of the timeline would spare you from having to create the related automation points (at the beginning of the project) to set all parameters to start at the initial value that they were set when I first started recording.
Same goes for all the plugins in a given patche or channelstrip setting.
Then, perhaps using the same software instrument with different versions of a given patche / channelstrip setting, each on different tracks (in a stack), could be used to spare you some of that task by decreasing the number of automation point to be added, limiting those to alternate track’s Solo/Mute as needed along the time line.