Adding something to secondary/conical fermenter?

So I think my SWMBO is getting me a conical fermenter (plastic, not stainless) for Christmas. The box is large, and mocking me with it's return address which matches the return address of the conical fermenter I put on my Amazon wish list...

I wanted a conical to move a little further along in my brewing techniques (not having to use a second vessel for a secondary, and I want to try and start harvesting yeast). But it got me thinking...

For those that have a conical fermenter and dump the trub (aka move it to secondary), do you just open the top and dump in things that you would normally rack onto in a secondary? I've got ingredients to retry my nut brown with pecans, and didn't like how it turned out the first time - and I was planning on racking onto the nuts in a secondary. Kind of wondering how to do it now... That is, provided the SWMBO actually got me what I think it is...

You can just drop additional ingredients into a conical, but I'd actually recommend instead that you rack the beer out of the conical into a carboy for anything that's going to be doing an extended secondary, especially if that secondary involves solids that might clog up the works at the bottom of the conical. The advantages in this case would also include freeing up your conical for a new batch, yet also maintaining the ability to harvest the yeast from the primary before you clean it out and rack the new batch into the conical.

I've not added anything to my beers in the conical, and anything that I've intended to lager for any period of time simply went into a keg or a carboy for the extended period. My conical is for beers that I want to get in and out in a month, so that I can keep the pipeline filled.

I've used oak chips loose in my conical before with no problems, anything smaller though and I would use a SS mesh ball usually used for making tea. When I dry hop I use the tea ball or muslin bags and suspend them with a chain so they don't clog up the valve ports at the bottom.