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Yes, there is a private/property-list/property list in each service instance:
In [2]: with ncs.maapi.single_read_trans('admin', 'python') as t:
...: s = ncs.maagic.get_node(t, '/foo-service{bar}')
...: for p in s.private.property_list.p...
In general NSO and NED upgrades can be performed independently. I typically do that to limit the impact of changes and focus on fixing one problem at a time in case there are any. I do not have personal experience with the cisco-ios* CLI NEDs, but I ...