In the old days of Oblivion and Morrowind, when scripts were in esp/esm records, those same records also contained space for local variables and global links. So, with Tes4Edit it was easy to check how compatible two scripts were in terms of the number and storage sequence of their local variables. That was very useful, if one contemplated replacing a script with a replacement version and wanted to avoid possible save issues due to mismatching variables when enabling or disabling the replacement script.

How is this with Papyrus? I would assume that scripts are still similarly susceptible to incompatible variable storage in saves, when replacing one with another, but is there even potentially any way to check precisely how incompatible they are, so one might try to do something about it? Or if there is no way to check it directly, are there known rules for how script variables are stored?

And please excuse me, if I should have been able to find this answer somewhere, but I am not really that far into Skyrim scripting to even be able to properly navigate through all its features.

http://www.creationkit.com/Save_File_Notes_%28Papyrus%29

Thank you for the link.

I will have to take a closer look, but my initial impression is, that the system appears to be much more robust in this respect, which is certainly a good thing.