I find the process very quick now. Just import the new rip, control +C all old tracks, control +Shift +V on all the new tracks (make sure they are in track number order). Then delete old rip. Couldn't be easier. You can do this for all the album's tracks, ie. you don't need to do it track by track. Excluding ripping time, takes about 5 seconds per album.
I am finding this a bit confusing...especially the part about "Just import the new rip". So...
1. You have an older version of the album - in whatever format...MP3, FLAC etc
2. Then you "import" the new rip?
Questions (and concerns)
1. When you "import" the new rip - where are the track located?
2. What naming convention do the old tracks have vs the newly ripped tracks?
3. What if (like ALL of my replacement activity) you are replacing a version of an album that was originally in FLAC but you now have a new rip of a better version of the same album - also in FLAC? I only import tracks into my main library - from a specific network location. So if I copy the new tracks out to the folder they need to be in - they immediately overwrite the old ones anyway. (this also can be useful in certain situations) - where I then use Update Library from Tags.
I think you process is assuming the old tracks are MP3 and the new ones would be something like FLAC...but as you can see - this replacement process become much more annoying if the formats and naming conventions are identical.
I do use CTRL-C and SHIFT-CTRL-V all the time to copy paste tags....but i would be much easier to have a command (or interface) within MC to handle the replacement activities with a little more finesse.
Cheers,
VP