The reloading after mouse focus causes multiple resizes as the control is first emptied, and then the items are re-added. If the mouse is sufficiently to the right side of the control, this might trigger further updates as the control loses/gains focus by shrinking/growing. Even without the oscillation, it looks weird / off-putting on its own.
Possible fixes
- one big update
- locking the size (or even giving it a minimum size) during the update
- ?reload on drop-down event?
- ?batch the small updates?
- disabling the event-handler until reload is done -- doesn't help with the "flicker", though