I am hoping to avoid having to flash the Xaviers to update them since this is a time-consuming process.
The developer guide mentions that a direct Image-based OTA update is not possible from Jetpack 4 to 5(production versions), but it does mention that an update to 5.0.1/r34.x is supported. So theoretically it should be possible to upgrade to 5.0.1 using image-based OTA update as an intermediate step, and then to 5.1.1 ?
All of the boot content, and equivalent of BIOS content, is different when going between R32.x and R34.x+. Even the partition scheme is different so far as I know, so I don’t think this is possible. Do keep in mind you can clone the rootfs prior to flash if you want to save that content, although you should not use an R32.x clone with an R34.x+ install.
Note: JetPack 4 implies R32.x, JetPack 5 implies R34.x+, where R34.x is a developer preview, and R35.x is the release.