I like to keep it real simple ...
My typical workflow since the prehistoric days of SONAR 6 PE has been to always freeze my synth tracks . This way I will always have a representation of the "exact sound " that had made me happy in the first place
Then once my VST synth track is frozen I will create a new audio track and slide the frozen synth track over to it ...
I do this because it's one of my ways of keeping my hard work safe . The new audio track has all the edits and effects that I had wanted on the track in the first place at the time of freezing ....
I also do it this way because it offers me a very safe playground in which to experiment.
Taking it another step further ,
The original frozen synth track can be edited even though it is frozen with one small thing to always consider ...
The second I unfreeze it I will lose all my edits and hard work and the track will revert back to the state it was before I froze it in the first place ...
In my style of work flow I actually find that to be a comfort ...
I can now work with out fear or the element of second guessing myself to the point of hesitation
The original frozen track can be rearranged , sliced and diced , and be brought to new places I may have been afraid to have brought it to in the first place ....
For the record , I always find something I like better in the frozen track I have edited so I make sure to always bounce that over to a new audio track for safe keeping
Taking it another step down the road ,
I have found it to be very beneficial to incorporate a very simple rule when ever I freeze a track and slide the frozen synth audio over to it's own audio track for safe keeping ....
Once I have hit that point of workflow in my project I will always save my project before I do another thing ...
I do this because I can always get back to where I was if need be ....
This is very simple to me , yet to somebody else it may sound complicated ...I can understand that yet I will still argue my case ...
Why is this simple ?
Lets say you have your frozen Synth kicking a$$ all over the place in your song . You may feel that for some odd reason it sounded good as it was , yet after doing a little editing and rearranging of your frozen synth you happen to prefer the swells of the way the oscillators did their thing at bar 15 . You may want that exact same sound and section of your performance for bar 37 ....
Well , while it is still frozen you can extract the section you want and copy and paste it over to the appropriate place in your songs time line
just make sure you bounce it over because once your synth has been unfrozen the track the synth is on will always go back to it's pre frozen state ...
who says you have to accept a static performance ...
I'm gonna stop here , I could go further ...with talking about stuff like saving the frozen synth over to it's own audio track and then unfreezing the frozen synth to use it again w different patches to create layers ...
that would be a different subject than what the OP was asking about ...
all the best,
Kenny