I just realized that there are options for bone weight "falloff"

this shows "cubic", "linear" and the customizeable "channel" options

Click to view attachment

potentially powerful, although hard to wrap my head around.

thanks for that tip, Robert. I'd never noticed that either and your movie explained it very clearly

I agree Robcat it seems to be one of the things, like cloth, that clog my pipes

Wow, I had no idea that capability was in there! Thanks.