Actually, Rene told me he was talking about "Trancil diodes". I never heard of these, but it sure sounded like he was talking about zener or avalanche diodes to me. I did a search and came up with nothing. Have you heard of Trancil?
When a neon bulb conducts, isn't it still a relatively low current device since it's just ionizing a gas? If so, I wouldn't think it would have enough of a shunting effect...