The switch to SODE jetways is not "just" to see passengers through them, is to make them WORK BETTER!
Default jetways were bugged, wheels were sinking, sometime they broke up, and it was very hard to model them, so scenery developers (everybody, including ourselves) didn't took the time to model many variations, which is exactly what happens in real world, to adapt a jetway the parking place precisely. A couple of models for the whole airport usually sufficed, which was one of the reasons (in addition of the default jetway animation system being bugged on its own) of their unpredictable behavior.
And, there was no way to have double or triple jetways on a gate, and it was almost impossible (or catastrophic for performances) to have the jetway number.
We are CONSIDERING adding support for AI. We purposely didn't consider this for the initial release because, what would have happened, is that users would all turn it on the option, and then the voice will spread "installing GSX Level 2 destroyed by frame rate", without realizing it was the AI-enabled jetways that did.
So, first we want to make sure everybody will test and know GSX Level 2 doesn't kill your fps, and THEN, maybe, we might add an option to support AI in the future, so it will crystal clear that, the thing that destroyed your fps, was you turning on that death button...
It's just that it seems such a waste losing a lot of our valuable development time, to add a feature that will be so fps intensive that most users will turn it on for a while, then will turn it off for real usage...
Note that, you are raising this because GSX Level 2 came out but, wasn't the same with all the other airports we released before it, which had SODE jetways too ?
KIAH
KLAS
KMEM
KCLT
KSDF
They all had SODE jetways well before GSX Level 2, and they all didn't work with AI as well.
Does one need to reinstall the FSDT and some FlyTampa sceneries (such as VHHX)? How can we then avoid changing again those jetways when updating automatically with the FSDT Live update tool?
Not sure why you included FlyTampa here. As clearly explained all over the website, the manual and the forum, NOTHING is touched on 3rd party sceneries! To replace jetways on a 3rd party airport, you must go through some a specific procedure of creating an exclude file, and customize all the parkings with new jetways. If you don't want to do that, just don't do it...
About LSGG, it's a bit different. This is our scenery, and we feel is our right to decide how to design it and improve it. If you want to revert to an old version, you can, but we don't want to make it easy or automatic, because users not using the latest version of anything are putting an unnecessarily additional strain on support.
Everything in our sceneries is made to work together: the jetways, the AFCAD and the GSX customization .INI file, with all the parking positions customized taking into account you DO have a proper SODE jetway. If you remove an element, it won't work as it should.
Yes, you CAN prevent the Live Update to go in a folder, by creating a blank file named DONTUPDATE in a specific folder, the one you don't want the Live Update to go in.
This is NOT recommended, and NOT supported. If you decide to to this route, don't expect to get much support from us, just like when editing the AFCAD. Some users know what they are doing and, of course, they don't require much support to begin with...
