Dan - thanks for that! Well explained and concise. Your end result is a surprise and is an intriguing idea.
Since the effect turns out to be pretty "effective", I'm thinking of experimenting with something that follows this train of thought, but would all fit into the Clip FX bin.
My reasoning is that it could be cool to have this kind of trail off accent effect at select, choice points in a song, rather than steady throughout the lead vocal passage.
I guess that could also be accomplished by just dividing up the lead vocals into two tracks. One track could be the more dry version without this sort of thing. Then, cut the areas to have this effect and paste them into the second track. The second track with the smaller, choice spot clips, would feed into this kind of effect chain in the ProChannel that Dan has illustrated. Either way.
I'll just try it in some choice spots in a song, rather than a whole lead line.