I doubt I would ever have paid full price for the service, but I got in during a sale and have been quite pleased for the money.
How much is more? Another $299.
I just checked a few of my recently-updated results, and all of them had new papers cited with recent publish dates. I spot-checked a few upstream from the most recent update, and it seems that half of the updated results had papers published in the last three months, and half of those were published in June.
I don't know where you got your information, but I've been quite happy with 23andme.
> How much is more? Another $299.
Incorrect on all counts. Current cost of the service is $99 + $9/month subscription which you may cancel. You also have the option to "bank" your saliva/DNA so that when they come up with a new gene chip, you will have results from that without having to repay. You just have to keep up your subscription, obviously. Since I got my results back I think they've been pushing updates about once a month (probably not a coincidence, but I don't feel like checking the exact dates), both times having information on genes covering 5-10 new topics.
What you describe did exist back when they switched from the v1 to the v2 gene chip (and I think the price was $399 at the time, no subscription existed), but now (v3) they have figured things out. I got in on "DNA day" this past April and paid $0 + subscription (so $100 for a year) and I chose the option to bank it, etc.