i have rarely had the chance to close them menu as it randomly disappears in use generally
The GSX menu never disappears randomly, it always disappears as soon as you choose an option, provided it doesn't need to come up again for a follow up question, which sometimes is immediate, like the choice of the operators after selecting a gate, but sometime the follow up menu comes after a a short time ( Pushback direction ), but can also come after a longer time ( Refueling or Deicing ).
And that's precisely the reason why you shouldn't close it from the Toolbar, for as long services are underway: you would MISS the all important follow up menu if you did, because it's not possible to programmatically re-open a Toolbar that has been closed that way, except from Javascript code which, incidentally, stops its execution when the menu is closed from the Toolbar, creating a chicken-egg situation.
THAT'S why you should always close the menu with the hotkey or the X icon, so the menu will only be hidden from view, but still active, so its code is still running, meaning it can show up again automatically, when needed.
i find the whole experience most unsatisfactory. every other menu icon works intuitively fsltl, navigraph etc, why is GSX any different.
GSX menu works just fine, if you follow the correct way of using it I already quoted from the manual, and it works exactly like Navigraph: its hotkey works only as long you close it with the hotkey ( not the toolbar ) and it stops responding if you close it from the toolbar.
The only difference is that, something like Navigraph doesn't need further actions as follow-up menus like GSX, so the fact the hotkey is no longer active when you close it from the toolbar, is not really a big issue, since when you close it, you are usually done with it and Navigraph doesn't need to do something in the meantime that would require re-opening itself.
GSX doesn't work that way, because of the aforementioned follow up menu pop-up that are required in several situations, and that's completely solved IF you use the menu as explained.