The MIDI thing isn't a worry anymore - the track delay does exactly what I need. But it's not available on an audio track, which is what I'd like.
I appreciate the input, but that would make things way more complicated. There's plenty of workarounds, but the point is that in other DAWs (say, Ableton) there is track delay in milliseconds feature available on the side of every single track, and when you are messing with drum feels, etc, it makes things really creative and easy. I was just hoping I missed an simple feature.