Hi,

I know video questions can bother some...but I think the
"show not tell" approach yields better answers in the
long run. So I appreciate those that take the time.
Thanks in advance

just a few cherry picked answers:

- to do the texture decals you can use MtlX Texture Coords -> MtlX Place 2D -> MtlX Image (Address Mode: constant)
also if you make it output Color4 you can use MtlX Over to layer it on top of another texture using it's Alpha
see attached example file

- I think when you drop material from Material Linker logic is not the most robust as you discovered.
If your display flag is not on the material linker it will create Assign Material node after the current display flag LOP, I assume because that's the LOP whose stage is displayed so it guarantees that the object exists, however I'd expect it to always use the Material Linkers Rules section to record the assignment, not even your existing Assign Material Node

this happens when the display flag is on your Material Linker
or if you drag it onto the object in the Geometry Tree on the right side of the Geometry Tree
you can still sync the object selection from the viewport there for easier assignments

- to delete referenced material from the Material Linker, you can switch to the actual Parameter Pane of the Material Linker node and just delete corresponding multiparm instance
since python panel interface doesn't seem to support this currently

- I'm also not a big fan that the cameras don't have resolution in USD, it makes life very difficult
what you can do however is set Aspect Ratio on camera to at least get the correct framing, the Fixed Size not working seems like a bug though

On the Render Gallery side, thanks for the video. I've been able to reproduce the hanging you saw (it happens specifically when you have the Render Stats open but have dragged the splitter all the way to the right so that the width is 0); we'll get that fixed. And thanks for the suggestion about allowing the Render Stats to take up the entire area; we'll look into that.