Then you must have something set up differently.
If I have the track header selected, Ctrl-A selects every sequence in every track.
But you are correct about Merge situation. I just tested without dragging the edges and it did work. (The reason it wasn’t working for me before was because I had something else selected in a different track.)
So, I have this standard view (in Podium Free, version 3.2.1 (x64)) of all the different tracks.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6jrhnbiMcnNc1FFT1UyeGZnYTg/view?usp=sharing
What do you have? Similar?