I typically copy a clip and its plugins and paste it adjacent when doing tweaks on a project. Inevitably I find my self making changes to the original file by mistake. I do however color the clip with a different hue so I can easily tell them apart on the montage. The inspector window has a cute little square showing the color of the clip one is working on. Could we do something similar to the plugin window? Perhaps something obvious like shading the menu bar to follow the clip?
Interesting, I note the idea.