[Milhouse]

You can always run the script on one machine (one installation of Python, assuming it's not a Linux system where Python comes pre-installed) then control all 17 clients using the "xbmc.host" parameter. Schedule it to run without interrupting anyone. Run it often, so that your system(s) are in peak condition.

Being able to automate stuff is the primary benefit of scripting, which becomes harder when you turn everything into a GUI addon that often requires user intervention, and can only show limited output which can't be piped into other scripts for further processing. There are a whole host of limitations when writing an addon, and I didn't want those, nor did I need any of the supposed benefits from writing an addon.

Now, if you think a local thumbnail cache is crazy (it's not, really) then I'm surprised why you haven't considered running the script on a single machine rather than try to install it 17 times.

And if someone wants to create an addon with the functionality of this script, or similar, then that's absolutely fine with me but I have no interest in doing it so please, don't moan at me. Better yet, write it yourself ("properly", of course).