[brazen1]

For me the thing that would hurt the most in going to an external player solution would be the absence of subtitles plugins. One can clearly start in VideoPlayer, download the relevant sub, stop and relaunch with external player. But that's not really user friendly.

 'Download subtitles' is a function in MPC players, commonly used with madVR.  You can press 'D' on your keyboard or map it to your remote control.  You don't have to leave anything.  You also have the option of assigning any url you want.  Subscene is the default I think.  You don't even need a plugin.  Imo, this is user friendly although I never use it or KODIs'.  Let's face it, the fact is, snagging a subtitle within the KODI GUI or the player GUI isn't exactly optimal.  You get no preview.  You get no guarantee the ones that scroll by are what you desire - sub for foreign spoken language only for example.  When you rip your disc, you should have included the exact sub you wanted anyway.  If you failed to do this or the exact sub wasn't included on the disc in the first place, personally I think going to a site that offers subs and previewing your choices after setting filters is the way to go.  I certainly don't agree occasional subtitle hassles hurt external player considerations anymore than using the KODI method.  Afaik, they are exactly the same given you use a player offering the function such as MPC.