Can't you still load what you need when you need anyway though?
No matter what engine you use a image will become a texture page at some point in the pipeline.
Just wrote a big reply and Safari crashed lol!
In a nutshell, if the offered solution is to use a 2yr+ old set of scripts that may/may not work (and has its own set of problems), not to mention using Spine with that system probably wouldn't work - then I doubt I'm gonna go to the hassle of implementing workarounds and cludges to something that should be very simple to manage.
Primarily being a coder I'm used to doing everything myself, if I don't specifically load/flush something it's just a file on the disk - so having GM force load everything on start just seems alien to me.
So then it seems GM is only any use for small games, or games which the creator is happy to use a single set of sprites and scale them or the surface between all resolutions and deal with the blur that will occur on higher resolution devices when scaling up.
Or you write your own custom system to manage everything.
GM is aimed at beginners that might never create a game that hits these issues as well, and that might be the problem I'm seeing which is not a fault of the software so much as myself.
But then I see the games in Showcase and think I must be missing something - although how many of them are dealing with the wider range of mobile screen sizes I have no idea.
They may also have implemented custom systems to manage exactly this, but I'm relatively new to GM and for me personally it would be easier to go and use a language I am comfortable with rather than try to implement something in GM when I'm not 100% confident in my knowledge of the tool.
I might be misunderstanding things and it might be very simple - but it just seems like something basic has been made extremely difficult, I'm sure there are reasons that I don't understand, but it does baffle me.
If you have an "GM External Textures for Dummies" link I'd be happy to read it.
Does GMS2 do things the same way, or do it differently?
edit:
I should add that I am really feeling for RyanC at the mo, so I'm being extra cautious and skeptical about things (and with my questions) as I am lucky enough to still be in a position to choose whether GM is suitable for my next game, and if not I am able to use something else which I have released apps with previously.
I'm not being awkward for the sake of it, just....weary.