Funniest reading around, Tim. Congrats!

Only the last part with that Airbus confused me as this is one plane .. ah, not here, not yet.

Ok, I just tried the AES pushback and it worked fine. Make sure to reload the plane after you click "repair" in the config tool.
Only then the changed values get loaded and I recommend this repair option on all aircraft in your hangar. For details on it, check the AES manuals.
There isn't much to go wrong with this setting as the default cfg is saved before as backup.
Might be your crashing pushback was airport depended then, my repaired one here went flawlessly and smooth.

Nice poll, I've voted.

JayG, I think you are getting banned because you are using the default GPS on that classic plane.  ;D Just kidding.
Hoping to see you in the skies then, in style.