For the record preloading isn't something that I'm happy about because it is a hacky solution to a core problem.
I don't disagree, It is a hack. Like I said, it is not an elegant solution, but it is effective and front loads the textures during startup VS the first time you look in a new direction which messes with immersion. I added it to the J3 more as an experiment and left it as an option.
This biggest part of the hack is making it an option and the multi-variation aspects of the aircraft construction. Otherwise it would be a relatively short piece of code. All it does is cycle through all the views at startup. The ugly part is making sure every object that might be hidden at startup in not hidden during the view changes. Unfortunately, all the variant aspects of J3, P18, undercarriages and damage makes for many places in the code that need a "select" switch thrown during this view change.
It would be really nice to have the core do a pre-cache automatically.