Let's say I have a bunch of .png files for each of which I should like a .svg trace.
I.e. for each:

• file -> new document
• file -> import (png as link)
• path -> trace bitmap (single scan, brightness cutoff, threshold 0.99)
• file -> save (.svg, use same name as imported .png)

Now I could do that manually, but it would waste a lot of time - to say nothing of how tedious a task it would be.
Is there a way to automate this?

If you`re on WIn - Have you tried with AutoIt?

If you're on something more Unixy (Linux, OSX) you could use potrace directly from the command line. It's the tracing engine used in Inkscape - except that it only works on B&W images, so Inkscape's colour tracing options reduce the image's colour depth, then calls the potrace engine separately for each colour in the result.