I never realised... until now.. That the title line in the cfg file can have a bearing on what gauges might be displayed. To elaborate: My recent Orca repaint had me re-visiting the Project Airbus A380 Qantas I'd had in my virtual hangar for some time. The primary eicas display in the centre of the panel (virtual cockpit) didn't work - just blank white, almost like an untextured part.

I downloaded an Emirates version which did have a working centre display. Cool! However, when it came to using the Orca repaint - no display! Yet both textures pull from the same common fallback folder, same panel folder etc. 

The difference? The title... The Emirates entry in the cfg file had this:

Project Airbus A380-841 Emirates VC PAgauges HUDL HUDR

The VC PAgauges HUDL HUDR meant that the centre display worked. In addition the movable frames for the HUDs showed up too.

I learned about FSX from that! 

I've used this technique in some of my freeware models. The developer adds code in the aircraft model to read the title line to look for specific words, and then hides or displays parts accordingly. 

Same here. Title controlled visibilities or features aviod the complexity of having to export multiple models while giving the user more flexibility in displaying certain elements. It's much better than a control panel since you won't have to worry about permanently storing the preferences.

Thanks gentlemen. I just wish I'd realised what was going on a bit sooner