You are a bummer. Talkin about dead trees before they are.
Do you know whether all tropicals do this in clay pots, get really stuck to the sides? I do have this happen with terra cotta, but that is a once-fired cay, not a vitrified. I don't know enough about real pots but if this happened to me, I would go back to plastic.
I am trying to get you to think about the potential consequences of things you think you might do rather than just jump in willy nilly. It's your tree, you want to risk it, go for it.
The tree will want to replace dead leaves anyway and it will whether you cut them or not, if it has the reserves to do it. I don't buy the premise that cutting off already dead leaves will make it push faster. I also see no reason to cut off perfectly good leaves on an already stressed tree.
I don't know why your tree got stuck to the sides of the pot unless it's because of the texture of the tetra cotta. I don't use Terra cotta pots, but rather high fired bonsai pots so that might be the difference. I use plastic pots for training pots though. Never had it happen with either one.
I wouldn't worry about it much. You would trim the roots when you repot anyway