Ray...
Yeah, I read your post and cant give you a more definitive answer. When we had our massive multi sessions two seasons ago, we had alot of the same problems but they could be traced to someone with a plane that wasnt like the others... if that happened, the Hornet would "run home to mama" and switch the paints back to the Blues paints.
Look at this video, go to 2:20, where Orion is the white Test paint and everyone else is Blue Angel paint. No, we didn't all take Blue Angel paints, believe me.
This is just one video, there are others of our multiplayer session where you can see our birds actually switch to Blues paints and back to what we selected.
I see you have been trying to minimize the variables and variations of your birds. One thing I'd suggest is just to have the VRS bird in your AIRCRAFT folder. Meaning, make a backup of your AIRCRAFT folder, then name it AIRCRAFT_BAK... then make a CLEAN AIRCRAFT folder, ADD the VRS Bug in there and go fly. If you get the problem with ONLY the Bug in your AIRCRAFT folder, then you know where its coming from. If not, add others, such as the default, then the Sludge. Til you get the problem to repeat, then you know the genesis of the problem.
Later
Sludge