For example, Keter is the latent hunger, you're hungry without even realizing it. That divides into the Fool, your actual hunger, and the Magician, your stomach telling your brain that you're hungry. The Fool goes to Chochma, your fully formed hunger, which then connects with the Empress, could be the "empty" feeling potential (what are you hungry for? Sweet? Salty?) which then meets Binah, your fully formed realization of hunger.
What are you going to make? Right now your hunger is still abstract, you're hungry for something but not sure what. Chesed is peering into the fridge and seeing what you have. It ls your raw materials. Geburah is the desire for bread and jam, you really want these things and will do anything to get them. Tiphareth is the ideal state of having all your ingredients, the sandwich is all but made in your mind, and it is absolutely perfect. Netzach is about the actual work in making the sandwich while Hod is you admiring the finished product. You have a sandwich, it may not be the ideal sandwich you dreamt of, but it is good enough. In Yesod you sniff the mouth-watering smell of your sandwich and in Malkuth you finally eat and satisfy your original hunger.
I left out the paths in the second part because I'm lazy, but the same thing can be done with them included. This can also be expanded to include four Trees in four Worlds, but that would perhaps involve much more scrutiny into all aspects of sandwich making, both physical and mental. It all depends on you and how far you want to take the model. The steps can also be interpreted differently, with different Sephiroth/path assignments.
Obviously my example is limited, since I'm just making a sandwich, but proper assimilation ،f the Tree yields wonderful results. You can look "into the past" by identifying where a card comes from and what its sequence is. You can look into the future for where a card is likely to go. This information is given even by cards that aren't in the spread. If you get the Nine of Cups, for example, you instinctively see it having Temperance (of Cups) before it and the Universe (of Cups) after it, and every card is expanded into a story. You can also look at cards as relating to their root causes. In essence, the Nine of Cups is what it is because of the Sun, Temperance and the Star (Emperor?). Coming from those paths, the Nine of Cups adds to itself the influence of the Universe, Judgement and the Moon in its journey to becoming the Ten. Each of these Majors is itself a four-in-one, because they exist in all the Worlds and so you have the Sun of Cups, etc.
So really, you can make wonderful mental models with the Tree and use it to analyze every situation. But ultimately that's all it is, a model, and the reader is the one who successfully translates that model into actualities. Just as a normal person wouldn't give directions to the grocery store by using latitude and longitude, a good esoteric reader goes beyond mere symbolism and really assimilates how the Tree works, and then "wields" it accordingly. Not only is it not restrictive, but study of the Tree actually breaks down mental barriers. When analyzing a situation, it allows you to juggle many different possibilities without becoming a "slave" to any of them. It teaches mental flexibility.
As always, it must be stressed that in the confines of the forum, conversations tend to be theoretical, and this is so that everyone understands each other. People might be throwing jargon around, but there are very real, concrete things behind it. An engineer may talk the talk with his peers, but to a customer they will say "I'll build you a bridge for this much money."