Prior to 7, I used Cubase SX3. In it, it was possible to solo the send effects without the pre-sent track mixed in. A button on the send effect section of the inspector (I don’t remember what it was called) muted the original track, only allowing the signal through to the send effect. Example: I send the drum bus to a reverb, and all I want to hear is the reverb from the drum track without hearing the pre-sent drums.