Before PartCutGen was made, we had a much easier method for manual edits: Create a new cutgroup at the very top called something like "Disabled" (Name doesn't matter, as long as it's unique) and add every single file within that group that you DONT want to cut. File references can only exist once, so if they are referred at the top to a group that does nothing, they will be ignored further down below even if they are part of a <Path> reference.
This still makes you do manual updates though. Extract new partcutdesc, copy over all your manual work, and then inject it again.
However, PatCutGen does this completely automatic. All you have to do is add the files you don't want to cut to an exclusion file and every time there is a new outfit, simply re-run PartCutGen and you're done. Voila, 5 seconds.
TLDR: You're still stuck in 2 years ago when we didn't know any better. I HIGHLY suggest you read up on PartCutGen.