Mark and magev, thank you!
Yes, Marks solution is what cracked the nut! For the record, here are some holy macaronis identified after much work. Not that I know how anybody will find this in the archives later on but anyway:
Holy Macaroni #1 - List the content of a field as a list of items, (NOT as one unit/link)
Here:List the tags of the current (and pick out only the second one - mostly to ensure it's accessible)
<$set name="set" filter="[list[!!tags]nth[2]]">
<<set>>
</$set>
Holy Macaroni #2 - Controlled removal by retrieving field content as list (NOT as one unit/link)
Here specifically: Fetch current tiddlers tags and remove aa from them. Returns all remaining tags.
<$set name="set" filter="[<currentTiddler>tags[]] -[[aa]]">
<<set>>
</$set>
Holy Macaroni #3 - Check if a value is listed in a field for a tiddler.
Specifically: Checks if aa is listed in the tags field of the tiddler Foo
<$set name="set" filter="[[aa]listed[tags]field:title[Foo]]">
<<set>>
</$set>
Something cool is in the making.
<:-)