This is a perfect example of modern day superstitions, in no way different from superstitions of stereotypical hairy cavemen sitting around the fire. You react to a program release that is mere three months old with a perfectly capable layout engine that has gathered enormous amount of functionality over who knows how many man-centuries across itself and its library dependencies as if you were told to drive an ox-cart. The talk about “safety” has long become a creed repeated thoughtlessly again and again. There's an evident manipulation in making people fear hackers and viruses so much when those who make the most money on controlling users' systems are in fact the ones who offer “better safety”.

Updates for the sake of updates is not a passive, neutral status quo. It benefits certain participants (both the ones on top of the power hierarchy capable of rotating the hamster wheel faster and faster, and the ones on the bottom, who, in accordance with this or that fashion, slap together something that is not supposed to work at all unless you update everything) while others pay the price. And it's the path of least resistance that people choose.

In the end, it's just marketing. If you can add a couple of commas here and there to make the whole thing crumble, which allows you to announce “newer better version with support for new technology, etc.”, it's way easier than explaining what you change, and why, to the inquiring public. The IT public, as we can see, is pathetically neutered, and acts like careless kids in the free-for-all amusement park.

Also, the author can totally get Linux with the leanest DE he can still stomach, and have all the fresh software. Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of memory is still a decent system, especially with an SSD. However, his problem is NOT the software, his problem is that the websites he uses stop working.