On Archlinux it is not recommended to update only one package with the package manager pacman. Let’s say I have 11 packages, and one of them is extra/firefox (true story). Updating only a pacman -S firefox could introduce problems, but installing a new single package if it wasn’t there is okay.
So my question is, could we get around this by removing and installing the same package again in one go: pacman -Rs firefox && pacman -S firefox
What part do you mean is the exception? Pinning a package version will lead to partial upgrades, by logic. So pinning the Kernel isn’t an exception itself, maybe its tolerable because the team tries to make sure this scenario works well? Otherwise I wouldn’t call it “exception”.