I'd be interested in how the live performers here handle this. What do you do when you have to play for several hours? Do you just use one large patch with loads of abstractions that get [switch]ed on and off?
there are quite some dropout issues with pd when playing live: open (sub-)patches, load soundfiles to buffers, gui-actions under high load (eg. drawing in arrays)...
my personal approach to computermusic is to explore errors and glitches so pds little disadvantages are welcome and i try to play with them. i think a live-performance at the edge of crashing can give interesting results, but this can't be a general approach.
correct me if i'm wrong, but as far as i can judge pds architecture these issues are fundamental design problems about the way pd does (not) use threads and does (not) seperate gui-, file- and signal computation.
i fear, if you want to be on the safe side, either you have to *) be very careful when loading files or fiddling around with patches+guis or *) additionally use other/external sound-sources to camouflage the problems. or *) use extremly high latencies and buffers and pray.
:(
regards d13b