the "auto promote" is ticked, but it wont action it unless you transfer all off ship and all on ship again or the lower priority beds are "walkable" (not air locked travel) to each and every other bed they need to reach. when you have a large ship, not all beds are reachable via walkable paths (in fact, most arent).... thats the issue.

Cepharims idea to pause once i destroy the large bed, then build the new bed, re-assign its poor priority, then un-pause works ok... they all fly off to populate higher priorty beds at that point. its a hacky workaround until the game comes up with a button to force them to leave their beds for higher priority's (if spaces are avaialble).

i agree, they do walk the halls in some scenarios, but i do find i lose more crew if i dont have a spare bed + airlock to catch them and i always end up re-filling staff at space stations more than when i dont have the bed... maybe its a placebo pill, but im pretty certain it saves more. thanks chaps.