I can add a few options in the preferences: “Do not load plugins automatically” (current behavior), “Ask to load from disk”, “Always load from disk”.
Also the way I’m envisioning it is that it will only unload plugins if it runs out of space. So if you have enough space on the ram disk, then it will only ask you to load plugins the very first time you open a patch with a new type of module. After that, the plugin will stay loaded even if you switch back and forth between patches. It would only unload the plugin if it needs to do so in order to make room for a new plugin. Sort of like “Recently opened”, where it keeps everything in memory until you get too many and it starts kicking the oldest entries out.
Just another thought, I like the term “preload” you used. We might need to call the boot-time automatic loading “preload” and then this new feature can be “auto load”… Not sure if that will be confusing to have the same name refer to a different feature.