Dave_C, I'm not one of the experts, but you don't have to do a start up before doing a shut down, you can just 'shutdown' directly. Some of the newer PS3 engines can also be started up by just scrolling the thumb wheel. I have a few that do that and a few that don't.
I have all PS3 engines on my layout, maybe about 5 or 6 right now, and I have yet to have the problems described here. However, I have seen the same problems reported here several times before and am also curious as to what is happening to cause them? It will be interesting to see if a cause can be determined.
I have 2 isolated loops of track each using one of the fixed TIU channels. Legacy is also connected to all of the TIU output commons, whether the channel is used or not. I am not yet using either of the variable channels, only the two fixed channels are in use.
I upgrade my TIU and Remote as soon as a new version is released, so I currently have version 5.