Thanks for the very helpful and very detailed replies. Much appreciated. I’m gonna do some more studying before replying further as I have -not- had the successes y’all have described. So I’ll give it another shot.
Perhaps it’s because I’m unconsciously resisting all these tempo changes—since they -are- ‘workarounds’. I loath ‘workarounds’ on basic principle. 
I think my ‘pause event’ would be much cleaner, but then… so would water-powered cars.
And at the risk of sounding chronically, passive aggressive re. Cubase fora, I honestly did not expect such good responses. VERY HEARTWARMING!
Cheers,
—JC