confusing interface for staff registering contacts for events
This is an inconsistency in the CiviCRM interface that others have noticed before as well.

This inconsistency does NOT exist for the "New Contribution" screen - because that screen has a "submit credit card contribution" link to bring you to the live entry screen.

For kicks, I added &amp;mode=live to the "New Event Registration" URL - and it APPEARS to work.

I would recommend:


Append &amp;mode=live to the "New Event Registration" URL and confirm that it works correctly.
If it does, it should be a simple matter to submit a patch to generate the "submit credit card registration" link to the appropriate template.