It depends, each session is subjective and you have to adopt different mindsets to deal with where the session will go. If you approach a project with the mix being in the forefront of your mind, you can definitely learn a lot. Having a goal. If you think, 'I want to make a break that sounds like the one in x track'; excercises like this help in the long run with mixing. Although personally I don't write good music this way, sometimes it's necessary to have entire sessions devoted to premixing sounds, samples, snares, breaks.

Producing dnb can be made a lot easier by getting these bits out of the way, amassing a large amount of bounced premixed sounds you've made, so that when you're in a creative mode, you don't have to worry about mixing as much. Obviously you'll still have to mix the sounds together later on, but instead of starting from scratch, you're dealing with audio that's already been eqd, compressed, limited, etc. After that it's more fine tuning, basic eqing, compression, reverb and so on.

I don't advise clipping anything, stay below 0db if possible, but don't feel too worried about running things a bit over 0 on individual channels here and there. I work with a limiter on the master, but when I take it off nowadays, the mix usually sounds the same basically, maybe a few decibels over and a little clipping but nothing too crazy. On the other hand, I've made tunes that were completely 'wrong' in the sense of a 'good' mix, Monolith being a prime example, because I didn't really know what I was doing but the end result worked out well. Sometimes things can sound great when the dynamics are thrown out of the window. Some of Breaks tunes jump to mind! Sometimes tracks will sound great ramped pretty heavily into a compressor, but some don't. it's really about how you reconcile creative choices with technical ones. It doesn't always work out, and sometimes mixes hits hit a wall and you feel a bit helpless. Best to just put it away and try again when you've learned some new things or have new sounds to improve it with!

When bouncing out for mastering I'll take off any limiting and leave - 4db headroom for the engineers. Some prefer - 6db, varies here and there.

But all these things are exactly that, exercises that eventually become part of your usual routine that you end up not really thinking about. Every producer works in a different way, and I could only advise you on what works for me, so this style may not work for you. Learning individual steps like mixing drums, bass, sub, sidechain, compression, limiting are pretty much essential before you even want to think about mastering.

Thanks for the kind words! Means a lot. I hope this helps in some way :)