I mean really, should I just give up on asking about these things?

I dunno. Works fine here, and works even if you don't do any copy/paste special, just ctrl+C and then ctrl+V. I don't recall ever having a situation where copying and pasting envelopes didn't work.

Jkoseattle, did you switch to the bus pane by mouseclick or by shortcut?
Just a thought.....

after you copy, try clicking in the automation lane before pasting, then use ctrlV.

Does it work if you select the busses themselves instead of the automation lanes?

The other day, a similar issue occurred to me. I had exactly the same plugin effect (MeldaProduction's MUtility) in a track and a bus, and they both had an automation lane for controlling the plugin's same parameter. Then, copying the envelope from the track to the bus first didn't seem to work. Then I realized that it created an "orphaned" envelope in the bus itself, so I had to manually assign the desired parameter to it later. I've seen some other weird issues in both track automation and clip automation.