Go to Preferences > Editing and toggle ON “Use Up/Down navigation to change tracks only”. See if that helps your issue. I am using FaderPort here on N8.1/Win 7 without any of the issues you describe.
If you notice, without this option selected, when you have an audio object selected the up/down arrows will scroll between audio objects on the different tracks and can select the track in a seemingly random fashion. I don’t know what to tell you about switching when touching the fader while automating. I’ve never seen that.
Good luck getting it sorted.