It's been a while since college. But I'll put in my 2 cents here.
For a close-loop amplifier design, one is mostly concerned with GBW (gain-bandwith product), which is a constant for an amp. You wouldn't run an amp in open-loop where the gain is max and bandwidth is min (half-power bandwidth). You extend the bandwidth by reducing the gain (dB) with measured amount of feedback (i.e. close-loop). Of course, bandwidth enhancement may not be an issue for audio frquency range.
Remember that there is always some parasitic cap in solid state devices that causes Miller-Feedback which is unavoidable. As for local negetive feedback in a multi-stage amp, it is usually employed for, amongst other reasons, attaining certin amount of gain per stage as well as slew-rate control. How the step response will look like can be predicted by the slew rate of the amp, or by how fast the amp is.
Global feedback, which I guess is taken from the very last stage, can be seen as error-correction from a Control System point of view. It is also a way of reducing the effective output impedence of the amp.