Hot gasses such as steam and CO2 trapped inside the dough by the crust are important to help properly bake the bread, as well as to give it form and structure. If you cut a slice off the end of the bread before the bread has finished baking, you completely change the conditions under which the bread finishes baking: steam will escape rather than building up, the internal temperature probably won't rise as much, and the bread will tend to dry out rather than cook.
If you're not sure whether your bread is done, you should take its temperature. An instant-read, digital thermometer with as fine a probe as possible is best because it compromises the crust the least.
For the same reasons, you should let bread cool as @justkt suggests before cutting into the loaf. Bread smells great when it's hot, but it tastes best when it has cooled somewhat.
If you make caramel acidic, it won't harden. So use cream of tartar (neutral taste) or lemon juice (easier availability) to create a non-hardening sticky caramel fluid.
I am not sure if you can add dairy (milk, cream, butter, etc). to acidified caramel, but there is a small chance that it will curdle, so I'd advice you to use clear caramel (browned sugar and water only).
I don't know how much acid you need to keep caramel at a certain viscosity at a given temperature, you'll have to experiment for that. Or maybe somebody else can supply this information. IIRC, a good starting point is a tablespoon of lemon juice per 100g sugar, but this is very imprecise.
The other option would be to make a semifluid sauce (cream, or starch-thickened milk, or diluted syrup) and add caramel to it, but the taste would be much weaker. My preference would be the clear caramel + acid route.
Best Answer
Actually, I think "the Internet" is wrong on this one, assuming that we are talking about proper caramel sauce.
In most of candy making, you are very careful of crystalization. You are working with a supersaturated sugar solution, and it is looking for the slightest excuse to precipitate. Stirring will clump the sugar out of the solution into crystals.
Some candy types need to be perfectly smooth, while others (like fudge) get their characteristic texture from careful management of crystal size. You shouldn't be stirring there at all.
But once you have reached caramelization, you can stir. What you have in the pan is no longer a supersaturated sugar solution, but caramelization products mixed in a less-concentrated sugar solution. In other words, you have caramel, which is a substance quite different from sugar syrup. And it does not clump into crystals. It is amorphous in its structure, not a crystal, and it's actually got some viscosity (if you leave a clump a solid caramel around for years, it will flow a few centimeters).
And you are not just dealing with pure caramel, but with caramel sauce, which also has lots of liquid added in the form of cream. So much liquid would have also prevented the sugar syrup from crystalizing if it had been added earlier.
So, to summarize, you shouldn't stir a sugar solution during candy making, but you can stir both caramel and caramel sauce.
It seems that somebody learned the rule about hot sugar solutions and decided that it applies in all kinds of candy making, without exceptions. But in fact, it doesn't apply to caramel sauce.