Using Ion fader wings to "record live"?

yes as long as the submasters there are some case that they wont, like if the sub is set to exclusive.

when recording cues like this, you might want to go to setup and in Desk > Record Defaults disable Auto-Playback

I'm not sure what you mean. Can you clarify?

if a sub has the property Exclusive, it will not be recorded into a cue. you can check that in the submaster list ( [Sub][Sub] ).
when you record a look created from subs, usually the cue is instantly played back by the console, so the levels now origin in the cue and not in the subs anymore. this makes it hard to reduce the levels in the next cue you might want to record. that's why you might want to disable auto-playback.