Did you pay attention to my "EDIT" above?
So: yes, changing/reviewing the correctness of the BSP path setting is the reason for opening the pop-up window.
The number of clicks or the convenience of which approach I am taking depends on where exactly in the UI I was at the time, so please don't make judgements on whether or not I am taking a more complicated approach or not in each case.
The POLS is universal, and keeping in mind the finding in my "EDIT", one always has to make extra sure that the BSP path one is just checking, or altering, applies to the "IDE" one is also using.
There are a few performance and quality problems with the "Installed" and "Manage Boards" modes in "Micro Explorer", it flickers, comes up empty, and in any case requires clicking refresh, rescan, "check for updates" multiple times. Sometimes it has a bug and changes into the documentation view, too.
Therefore, I keep checking that the IDE and the BSP json paths were not somehow forgotten, and when in this case the IDE pre-selection is not the correct one, it's just another hassle.
I don't keep a checklist by my side when working with VisualMicro for VS