I'm not sure these data refs are ever meant to be used for this purpose so there may be nothing we can do; the axis is the correct way to do this. But did you still have something bound to the axis at the time?
Hi. Firstly, please don't reuse other people's posts for unrelated issues. Secondly, you didn't mention removing the safety pin for the nose gear bay door; was that done?
X-Plane doesn't take the 3D model into account for occlusion when rendering its lights, that's just the way it is. The same reason you see the sun shining through the cabin onto the displays and reflecting, it's as if the fuselage didn't exist.
One doesn’t need to do it by sight; any desync is ignored until you align your hardware with the plane’s throttle lever angle at the point ATS is disengaged. That’s why the overlay exists.
There are 3 lighting control panels at the rear of the pedestal. The brightness of...
.. is controlled by the right hand side integ lighting control,
.. are controlled by the centre, and..
.. are also controlled by their respective sides. No-one has reported issues with these controls before.