I think I see why the smartlists and links go away as well, I believe they are part of the library.
To change this, it seems we would need a way to make a DLNA connected library persist across a reload.
Right now, when one stops and restarts MC the remote DLNA library still exists but when you reload it from the "Connect to Library" function you are essentially throwing away the old library. I don't think DLNA requires the servers container ID's to be consistent across restarts so I'm not sure how one would do a "merging" connect (kind of thinking out loud here).
Perhaps instead one could expose the playlists on the server to the controller (if the server will give them)?
I can see why our Library server works better in this multiple computer scenario but I assume you can't use it in your setup.
If the idea is that you can access the same playlists and links from multiple MC instances,
when using a central MC library, then storing smart-/playlists and links in the library is of course a good thing.
But also, it should be possible to use smartlists and links independently of a specific library.
For smart-/playlists; why not define two categories under the "Playlists" container:
Global (locally/Registry stored smart-/playlists; picks from all (connected) libraries)
Library (library stored smart-/playlists )
Then you can choose yourself what kind of smart-/playlists you want to create and use.
For links, maybe a "Library independent"/"Global" option for the link in the "Manage Links" window?
Espen