"I am now not sure if I want to go ahead with the clutch bleed.... I am not very confident now about it with the consequences being a dead vehicle."

I understand your concern but, like I said earlier, I was able to replicate the solution a number of times. In fact, when I first figured out what was going on, I deliberately bled the clutch with lower pressure. Sure enough -- I got nothing but air bubbles out of the slave cylinder. When I pumped it up to 20 psi, it bled properly. At this point, I'm not afraid to do this simple job. You shouldn't be either.

"... it just seems strange that the system would suck in air during bleeding. Just doesn't make sense."

Tell me about it! BTW, that would be "blow," not "suck." ;)

"And what do you mean by self-bleed? Self-bleed where? Won't the air stay in the system forever? Or is the system not hermetically sealed?"

Think about it -- the clutch hydraulic lines have a short uphill run from the slave cylinder to the master. If a *small* amount of air were to get into the lines such that the pedal only had partial pressure, then you can be sure that those air bubbles would rise to the top of the lines and out to the master cylinder after a few pumps of the pedal. Any bubble of air that might still be left in the slave cylinder can be bled out with a brief crack of the bleed valve.
--
Jim Rothe, '99 S70 T5M,
http://www.jimrothe.com/volvo/index.html