>If I set a cursorsetprop("buffering", 5, "viewname"), does the property trickle down to the tables it's comprised of, even if I select one of the tables for use?
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No, the buffer mode for a table is independent of the buffer mode for views using it. If you use a SQL SELECT rather than a view to pull data from a table, the resulting cursor is not able to directly update the underlying table if changes are made to the resulting cursor IAC. You have to define a view, indicate what fields are updatable, the updating key, in order to work with subsets of data from a table with the goal of having changes made to the cursor reflected in the underlying parent tables.

It's time to buy a book on VFP - Whil Hentzen's "The Fundamentals" is a good starting place; I've used that working with clients to get their staff up-to-speed on VFP with generally good results. Another book to look into is Jim Booth/Steve Sawyer's "Effective Techniques for Application Development with Visual FoxPro 6.0" is a great book, but frankly, it expects you to have a basic working understanding of VFP. And RTFM applies - this and the majority of issues you've raised here are discussed in the OnLine Help for VFP.