The 256 bit (which changes Return/Ctrl+PgDn behaviour) has no effect on actual archive Icons, whether or not they've been assigned to a .wcx like MultiArc or not.
I don't exactly follow your flow chart there. But I believe TC just needs to respect an "IconLib=" assignment for all icons that you modify within it. And stop forcing the Yellow Packer icon for every single ".wcx".
1) Allow icon assigments right within the Packer definition. i.e.
2) Allow "Internal Associations" to override both TC Defaults, and any Packer Icon assignments.[PackerPlugins]
7z=479,%APPDATA%\¤TC\plugins\wcx\Multiarc\MultiArc.wcx
[PackerIcons]
7z=%ProgramFiles%\7-zip\7z.icl,0
The only other thing (which I don't know if it can be done currently or not, I couldn't get it to work) -- would be to allow Internal Associations for Folders, which would garner a couple of different things:
1) You could assign the default action to: OPENCUSTOMCOLUMN
2) You could assign custom icons to specific folders. Without the desktop.ini "workaround" which doesn't work properly when dealing with Junction'ed Folders. As you only have 1 desktop.ini and possibly 2 or more "folders" that would be affected by it.
TC has gotten inconsistent, just like how there are "Associations" in Config|Edit/View ... that will affect the "External Viewer" (Alt|Shift+F3) for specific extensions -- which have nothing at all to do with "Internal Associations" nor do they have any effect on "Return" or "Click" of a file.
Then there's F4 which is stuck at being one single "Editor" and unaffected by Associations or Internal Associations, unless you use one of the "F4 Launchers" -- so right there there's 4 different ways to open files, and 3 different .ext associations that can be made, plus default Windows Registry .ext's.
