Sorry Nat,
Maybe I'm the only novice video editor on here, but I didn't follow what you were saying at all. Btw, I'm not a novice technically, having been a software developer for more than 30 years. Can't grasp what you are saying "pull back the ends of your clips to a little more than the depth of the transition bar (equivalent to the in/out settings, but less phaffy to reverse)"
Regards,
RJ