I too had similar problems with GME. to be exact main troubles where with those:
-readme.txt - no good solution except for manual editing of distrib before installing. Just remove them or renaming and throw into Add-on Docs dir.
-base.cfg - if add-ons requires base to have extra texture it had to put it's name in base texture list*. Luckily nothing bad happens if in that list are nonexisting texturs. So one can install extra base with GME, manually edit base.cfg and that's it. Deinstalling will not require changing cfg to previos state, it's even good that way - next time that base will be installed again - config file is ready for it.
-sol.cfg, existingplanetname.cfg or sun.cfg - anything that just tweaks this (like adding extra planet or making atmosphere or sun to look nicer) is doomed GME style - don't even bother installing them with GME unless it's the only addon that tweaks this particular file
-SpacecraftN.dll - same trouble as reame files in main folders, except that it's not addon developers fault
So you either stuck with manually removinf spacecraft redistribution from add-ons or have to uninstall addons in exact inverse order you installed them.
After all this was done - it worked as smooth as was possible. I could activate and deactivate addons fast and easy. That felt good, yet useless
I just don't need to activate/deactivate addons very often. Of course I use GME now - after all it IS usefull after all that preparation work, I just feel that all this was not worth it :-/ Looks like and old solution of having separate installs of orbiter would have worked just better (in effort/reward sense).
Yet of course idea of add-on installation that is easy and similar for all addons is an interesting one. Installation of good packed add-on is just that - simple similar procedure of extracting it to main orbiter directory. It's deinstalling is the hard part. And config editing. And module activation, may be
Ideally, automatic install/deinstall utility should look like this - you choose directory or archieve for installing - and thats it. Same for deinstalling - just choose item from list of installed addons and you're done. And well, it's technically possible to make, even the config problem could be solved - all that is required is to make some standard for config edting notes. (And make every addon developer to put them in distibution should they need config editing, but ahem.. i'm discussing technical difficulties not organizational $)
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*And is that texture list even necessary? Something like textures\basetextures\ folder will work just as fine except without all that messy config editing stuff. Anyone aware of a place, where i can suggest this tiny improvement for next version?
