is the stop button really useful?

i agree. get rid of the stop button and show the pause icon instead of play on the play button during playback instead of just showing it pressed or unpressed.

I didn't see this bug for a while because it wasn't reported upstream. The deal with the stop button is that it stops the playback or recording *and* moves the playhead (red line) back to the beginning. If there was no stop we would have to replace this function with another button which would probably look weirder and be more confusing.
There is also another important distinction; if you are recording and you hit pause, the recording and playback is paused *for real*, as if you have stopped time. Jokosher still has a control of the output and input devices and when you hit play you will start at exactly the next audio frame as opposed to an approximation.
Only one program can use the microphone and if Jokosher is paused no one else can. If it is stopped, it lets go of the microphone and closes the file it is saving the audio to, and an event is created. Upon restarting recording again a new event is created, In this way you can divide different recordings into different events on the timeline.
The stop button exists for implementation reasons (which we are stuck with because that's how alsa works) and for user interaction reasons (creating a new event when stopped). If you have another solution for both of these please let me know. :)