Cross sell/ compatible products

So i am looking at Cross sell and not sure its sophisticated enough for my needs.

I would like to link compatible products together to cross sell.

However i would like to do this by say types of product.

Lets see if I can explain.

Manufacturer A makes all these product
Manufacturer B makes similar products and so on

I would link only manufacturers products for compatibility as it starts to get complicated.

Manufacture A Makes

Product A in 10 different variants lets say A1 to A10
Product B in 30 different variants B1 to B30 not all of these are compatible With Products A1-A10
Product C in 15 variants, C1 to C15 again not all of these are compatible with Prodcuts A1- A10

If I use attributes that would probably make it easier:-

A1, Attribute Type Product B(then compatible variants), Product C(then compatible variants), Product D(then compatible variants)

Theres a long list of product types and not sure this would work out well.

When i do this via manually created pages.

I have a product, description, image, and a request quote or cart link, then expandable sections with the compatible products in.

each group has its one box which can expand to have 20+ products in.
when you open it up it has name (link to a full product page) brief info and add to quote or cart.

Problem with this is 1000's products an linking them together takes time. Even when I am copying blocks

hoping easy populate would make adding of products easier.

Maybe I need a custom solution and thats easy on the resources, ie making it easier to add the products and link them together,thoughts.

easy pop would make it easier to upload the individual products/ change pricing

Linking them in compatible groups might be a separate uploader that links them together,