ps. Turns out the EdgeTX Companion has a companion feature built in, so probably best to just use that in most cases!
This video explains that it can be helpful to compare model files using a text editor like Visual Studio Code. In my case, I had two very similar models, one where the vario wasn't working due to accidentally deleting a special function on the radio. Using Visual Studio Code let me figure out what was missing, and how to fix the model file.
https://code.visualstudio.com/download