Might it be wiser to NOT install 10.6.8 yet, given all the problems folks seem to be having who did?

Question

I am new to "support communities" and only fair at the techy stuff. I am "blown away" at the number of problems people are having after installing 10.6.8: printers stop working, frequent crashes, overheating machines, machines running full tilt so that operations are very slow . . . . Is all of this normal with an OS X upgrade??? Sure, this Apple support area deals with problems, but all this unsettles me. Am I wrong in waiting longer for 10.6.8 improvements and being happy with my 10.6.7?

Answer 1

Let me offer the paranoid point of view.
You might be paranoid because:
1) You and your system are the only source of some 'mission critical' business information, or
2) you travel with your system where system discs, backup devices, and support won't be easily available, or
3) you use your system daily in your business and cannot afford any business-day computer downtime, or
4) your system is the only source for all your important business and personal contact information, or
5) your system is your only computer and the only means you have to access the internet and these forums for help.
IF your computer is running reliably now without any problems*,
AND you have multiple current backups,
AND there is nothing in the OS X update that you MUST HAVE TODAY in order to update some other software or hardware,
THEN it cannot possibly hurt to wait a few days.
*And if your computer is NOT running properly now, BY ALL MEANS, FIX the existing problems before attempting any upgrade!!!
Read the forums for a few days after an update is released to see the types of problems the 'early adopters' encounter. If several people are reporting immediate problems with your exact printer, or peripheral, or application, or Mac model, then don't be in a hurry to install the upgrade. Revisit the forums for a few days to see how the problems are resolved.
Download the Combo update when it becomes available, but do not install it immediately.
Make certain you have multiple backups via a backup system that you fully trust. Occasionally test your backup system to be certain that it is both backing up and restoring reliably before you try a major update.
Once you have the 10.6.8 Combo update .dmg file downloaded to your system, you will always have an opportunity to update to 10.6.8,  even after Lion is released.
In addition to multiple external backup drives, I have a spare USB external hard drive just for testing updates.
I clone my current hard drive to it, and then download and install the Combo update to the external drive first.  I boot to the external drive and test my applications and peripherals and look for symptoms/problems before eventually installing the update to my working system.