Yeah, I know you can do that in practice mode, but I really liked the lick lab for learning solos. Really breaking it down and mastering each part seemed like the way I want to do it, and I'm annoyed that it won't let you keep doing it slowly until you learn it. That'll be my suggestion to them, make a manual mode for that, where you only graduate up to the next speed when you ask to.
And yeah, when I first got it I wanted to play all the time, but my main time where I have the TV to myself is when I wake up before my wife. That also means I have to play guitar *very quietly*, so easy mode was the way to go. I do have the same thing with having to play slightly ahead to get perfects, but that was definitely do to the input lag. Ever since I figured out the "Direct analog" mode on my receiver, that fixed the problem for me, it's actually pretty easy to get perfects now. That said, I found that my scores only slightly improved, far less than I had expected, so I wasn't really worried about being a jerk and screwing up everyone's easy leaderboards anymore. I also noticed that since I fixed that input lag, I don't get dinged nearly as often on the bends and slides.
Also, my guitar has gone back to "I'm going to throw all strings out of tune when you retune one of them", so I'm guessing I did something wrong with adjusting the bridge. Will try to deck it more per George's suggestions and hope that that fixes it.