2016-03-02, 16:07
Regarding missing backgrounds, I found some time last night to figure out why it happens - though not what can be done about it. All the backgrounds that are going missing have a colordiffuse applied to them from a variable - often, but not exclusively, $VAR[ColorDiffuseVar]. That $VAR[] in turn calls multiple other $VAR[]'s to get the final color to be applied. When the backgrounds stop displaying, the $VAR[] has stopped returning any value, so Kodi is applying an empty colordiffuse, and so making the backgrounds invisible. 
