How can I prevent my posed rigs from defaulting back to the static stance? Also undo questions I created a humanoid rig, skinned it and got all the project files open in the same instance. Started moving things around and then posing my model...

Issue number one... Using Ctrl+Z or even "Undo" in the "Edit" menu cause all objects to return to the original locations and removes all bone adjustments with the posed armature. I just want to step backward one adjustment, not revert the whole scene back to "just loaded objects in." 

How is this accomplished?

Went through this several times across a multitude of hours - decided to abandon hope with undo and started using "Edit>Undo History" and selecting through, which works about 90% of the time. Began saving alternate saves for each change (save a copy) with a numeric rename. 

I was finally able to get my model posed and ready for render/weld. I wanted to adjust the position of a scene object and slightly resize it. Clicked on "Edit Mode" and BAM! Everything reverted back to original position. Tried loading in from my most recent save - all objects were in original static positions at 0,0. I then completely closed everything without saving, deleted my entire scene, ran CCleaner to clear cache, relaunched Blender 2.8, and chose to load my most recent save (93)... Same issue. Loaded the save before that one (92), and before that one, all the way down to 89 -- all duplicates of one another... Exactly the same, everything back to project step 1, all undo history options were "original" in all modes (object, pose, edit, etc). 

How do I keep the current status and adjustment of my scene as the point that I am working at, instead of everything reverting back to default position whenever I make one mistake or need to save and return later? 

Is there any way to prevent Blender 2.8 from reverting the entire scene back to "original" positions for your rigs, meshes, objects, etc., within the scene?
Just press I to insert a keyframe or turn on auto keyframes, so that everytime you modify anything that can be keyframed, a keyframe is saved.

Auto keyframe is the red record button on the bottom right of the picture