Yes definitely prosody and all the other things you mentioned are very much important.
I was afraid of CTA as well, which is why I never really considered it an option. Using the pitch range in speaking is a very feminine trait. CTA seems to not really make that easier. Without CTA it seems to be mainly an issue of getting used to it and training the muscles and the brain to use different pitches. When I started voice rehab, I could go up to the "break" at around 300-something Hz and then I sprang into falsetto and that went up a bit. With voice rehab, just doing the airflow liptrill exercises I managed to go more easily over the break and to increase my upper range so much that my voice therapist kind of is at her limit as well in makting sounds in that pitch. That was really amazing. And a lot of it is about actually letting go and relax. I am not sure if the exercises are made to be public, so I dont really want to post them. I will write you a message though. But check out the videos and you can look on youtube for lip trills, glissandos (in combination is possible).
Speech therapy is fun and there seem to be a lot of them around. many dealing a lot with old people, people who had some other sort of surgery at the larynx or who stutter or children who are not speaking clearly , maybe because thea are hearing imparied. Also a lot of hearing impaired people get voice therapy because they may have issues with their voices as well if they cannot hear themselves speaking. So a lot of people do get some sort of voice therapy - maybe look for voice rehab, voice therapy, speech therapy - anything like that and not just voice training - the latter sort of implies someone who has a good voice but wants to learn how to sing, speak in public, anything fancy like that. But the others are mor focussed on medical issues and at least in Germany usually this is even covered by health insurance if an ENT puts a diagnosis up saying you have some sort of speech problem, especially if you are in a job that requires speech.
