Coming from the Pinnacle Liquid workflow, I have become rather fond of being able to drag a media clip from a bin and use it to drop-replace a clip on the timeline without losing all the video effects or keyframed audio, etc. It's as if you've simply connected the clip to another media file while maintaining the rest of the metadata. The advantage of this is that you can prototype a series of effects and transitions and then simply replace the underlying media in a single operation.

Sony Vegas has a similar but more powerful feature where you can associated several media links to a clip and cycle through them, etc.

My question to experienced MC users is simply - can a similar workflow be accomplished with MC?

Thanks in advanced for any guidance here, 

 Yes indeed, you can. Use the nesting function (the up and down arrow keys on the timeline tool) to step into the effect. You can then replace the footage, step back out and have all your effects keyframes and parameters intact.

 Thanks, Larry!

Very cool - a very powerful approach as well.

 You're welcome, glad to help. Also, you can save an effects template for application to other clips by dragging the effect icon from the effect editor into a bin.

I believe you could also just load the clip you want to use to replace into the Source mark your In point, then park at the head of the clip to replace and choose "Replace Edit" it looks like Overwrite, but instead of a Red Arrow, it's Blue.

 Actually, that overwrites the effect as well; however, a combination of Larry's technique and yours works nicely.

Thanks to both of you,