Just loaded up P3D and said couatl needed an update and no restart needed.
That's not normal. Yesterday's update was a Major one, so the message should have told you to *Exit* from the sim, and download and install the latest Stand-Alone Addon Manager. In fact, another user said it did exactly that:
http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,14095.msg104189.html#msg104189the update says I need new version of add on manager
I don't know why it said there was no restart needed on your system, since this is clearly marked as a major update.
The system depends on some html protocols standards, so perhaps something in your system (caching files) hasn't triggered the downloader to get the update headers for the file that triggers the update. That's the only possible explanation I have, but you can be sure we have set the server for a MAJOR update, one that will trigger a message prompting to exit the sim and download the Addon Manager.
So I updated it and guess what, crash, crash, crash.
That's be expected: applying a minor update when there's a major update required, might cause errors (not crashes), because the Addon Manager/Couatl are still outdated, which is the whole point of a major update to begin with. When the updated GSX code doesn't depend on new Addon Manager/Couatl files, we push a Minor update notification instead, which is not what we set up now. The only real issue is why you saw a Minor update notification instead.
Said I needed to update the Standalone Addon Manager.
So it said that! Did it said that on the next session maybe ?