If you have a .tif or .psd file in Lightroom and want to export the image in order to resize the file (perhaps to give a low res, layered version to an art director) be aware that Lightroom will remove any clipping paths. This can be solved in a variety of ways including using Photoshop’s Image Processor script to resize instead or using actions and droplets as a Post processing step in Lightroom. For more information on using Photoshop Actions with Lightroom click here…

Is it possible to persuade LR NOT to remove clipping paths when exporting? This would be so much sweeter than also having to use actions.
No, there isn’t. But you can add it as a feature request here:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family