Is there a quick way to toggle this and not to go to the preferences? - maybe by using button or hotkey. I am just finding out that it's necessary to use both options, depending on what you have in the lister at a time.
Commands can override what happens when you start renaming the first file, but I don't think there is a way, outside of going into preferences, to change the preferences setting that affects what happens when you cursor down from file to file.
I leave it on the 'retain cursor' mode and then if I want the whole filename selected I use ctrl-a (or ctrl-f for just the name without extension).
Since there is no other way, we should change our habits. 