I think disabling other planes' skins has solved my screen freezing problems. I'm running at 1024 texture size and have noticed no freezes since I disabled other skins.
My question: If I have selected a custom skin, do all other planes of the type I am in show up as the skin I have selected, or do they show up as the default choice?
I am hoping they all show up as the skin you've selected - that way if you are in a squad you can all see the squad skin while formation flying, but still take advantage of the screen freeze fix of disabling other planes skins...