Another Pulseaudio Adventure

[Fedora User]

I made the "mistake," last night, of powering off with the sound muted.

For reasons that I will NEVER understand PA decides to select the next
sound device if the first one is muted. That would be the HDMI output
(from the same sound card). The analog output is then not an option
under hardware settings.

Usually, I can straighten this out with a pulseaudio --kill &&
pulseaudio -D. Now, however, these commands reset the audio back to the
remembered state (muted) and, although the analog output device is now
available, it refuses to produce any sound. PA is profoundly confused
by muting.

To add insult to injury, just examining the hardware requires the
additional "apply" click when nothing has changed; it's just one further
nuisance. 

A reboot sends the sound back to muted no matter how I set the mixer
before rebooting. This is all EXTREMELY f*cking frustrating.

WHEN will developers finally accept the FACT that PA has been a problem
since it was first introduced? For years I could harmlessly remove the
damned thing but that is no longer really an option.