Wow, that’s a lot of information to digest. I’m not going to read through it...
I did look on google, and while I’m not familiar with all the stations and their locations, I did see a couple and saw breakers on the ground. Some had SF6 interrupters, as indicated in your last pictures.
I’m really not familiar with what happened, but here’s a question. Some years back the north had a large power outage. It was started by a tree trimming crew, I believe. They knocked out a feeder, another breaker failed in a station, taking that station out. Stations in parallel now are asked to take on additional load instantaneously. Can’t handle it, causing 50, 51 and 81 relays to open circuits. Something like this prompt this change?