Yeah, when I was building the new UI I knew there would be an adjustment period. For folks who have been around for a few updates it's a change in routine, and change takes time to adapt to. Unfortunately, unless someone else has a workaround they can share, or someone with experience in ren'py would like me to explain the code behind the scenes, I'm probably not going to sink anymore time into that issue. It's inconvenient, sure, but I'll take a little ding on function for a much better looking UI overall. In my opinion, those are diminishing returns for the type of time investment required to come to some sort of solution.
It sounds like you've found a workaround for your particular issue, so that's good. And if more users have similar issues, I welcome them to describe them here. Who knows, maybe that will trigger some kind of aha moment.