Animation track and animationclip position

So just getting into Timeline and playables after checking out the Unite keynote. Pretty cool and can definitely see the potential.
I have a simple Timeline with a clip of a short walk animation, and when I scrub through in the editor it starts play at 0,0,0.

I'm wondering is there a way to make the start position of the object inherit from its existing position? While I've figured out how to do this via script(which then works as expected in play mode), it doesn't work for in-editor previewing. Am I missing something here? Also is there a way to disable rootmotion? I know there's a function to inherit from a previous clips offsets but wouldn't it make sense for something like that for the objects starting position?

Sub note, on the timeline view I have to minor wishlist things: a scroll bar(one like adobe after effects' preferably) is a really important and lacking aspect of the timeline UI. I know how to scroll in its current form, but I prefer left clicking over the middle mouse button as well as using alt.
Secondly while I can rename the various tracks, the names for animation and audio(and presumably cinemachine brain?) don't show on timeline(only the inspector).
Thirdly: I can mute individual tracks but seemingly not groups? Also muting - would prefer it to be called disabling/enabling but that's super minor

 

Ok so I guess I solved my main issue by simply making the gameobject as the child of another object.

Got another question: Is there a way to make a timeline, where I can change the gameobject depending on the situation? So lets say in my scenario I have a trigger that will start the Timeline which contains a couple of animations. I'd like it so that it can affect multiple characters(say based on tag), not just a predetermined one. How do I pass that information to the PlayableAsset? Is this possible?