Thanks and I have seen this before, and it is interesting indeed, and by all means should be part of the conversation.
What I am offering is only that I have found no discernible change in.....well.....anything...by taking off 1/4-1/2 the length of a pip. If the horn was intoning well/acceptably before the slice, it still intoned well/acceptably after. I have never (intentionally) messed with a pip length for the sake of 'bettering' a horn's intonation somewhere. My goal was solely to get that bothersome piece a bit more out of the way for sake of servicing.
I think sometimes people get the impression that certain specs are there for a very good reason - that every spec on a horn is dialed in to every other spec and tipping the boat by altering one will tip something else.....and indeed this can be true, sometimes or perhaps even most of the time.
But sometimes the reason for the spec has little to do with the actual, real-time, discernible performance of the instrument, and more to do with something else (industry standard, fabrication process or the like, for example). I think this subject is one of those cases....