Yes I do have a hub with individual power buttons. That’s not the problem, and the sim does seem reliable in re-detecting controllers that way.
The problem is as I wrote — as soon as you power down, the XP Force software loses its hold on the stick so even when MSFS detects it again, it has no feedback until I restart the sim using the XP Force icon (that’s just the way it works to activate the SimConnect layer I guess)…