Thankyou all, that's answered a lot of my questions.
A couple of simple, constructive suggestions:
it would be really helpful to have notification of "no uninstall feature" right up front. It just helps to strategize how to use your images, SD cards and backups etc. (I think).
the term "softy" doesn't come up in a search of the documentation, yet its right up top in Armbian configuration utility > Software. I confess I missed that completely. That's a problem if you pick up on softy by reading forum posts: "What the hell IS this thing everyone's talking about? Where IS it???" (italicized for a little bit of theatrics).
I guess the only thing left to do is apologise for not having the skills to contribute to any of this.