save states and backing out of games

[Flavor]

The Freeplay CM3 image is a standard RetroPie image with additions for LCD, audio, inputs, etc. The other mods are minimal. Off the top of my head, I think the only thing we disable is Samba shares, because that slows down the bootup process.

First of all, does your power button spring back to "off" when you let go of it? It should operate like a DS power button. It should not stay on the ON position by itself. If it does, you should modify the plastic slider to allow it to slide back freely.

It sounds as if your main issue is with the hotkey functionality. You can reconfigure the input (from the main menu) and just use SELECT as the hotkey if you don't like using the Power button as a "hotkey toggle."

Let me know if that makes sense.