Fed up with non-rolling releases...

[thomasl]

@Arnox Very much agree. It's now a regular occurrence that a new version of an app is either (much) bigger or less powerful or both. I am now extremely careful, even reluctant, when updating software and often test-drive a new version for a few days before committing. There are two exceptions: one, as you wrote, is security:

Again, if you need them, security updates are very important

The problem there is that it's very hard for a non-specialist to decide whether a certain security update is really needed or not. I prefer to err on the side of caution.

The second area is very new hardware. Often that'll not run as well (if at all) with older versions.

[oops]

... but would a rolling release of mx be out of the question to avoid such annoyances every few years to remain a devout mx user?

Yes it is out of the question in its present state as you have discovered.

For me too, the stability is the priority one. And now a MX23 tool exists to easily reinstall the users packages.

[daemonspudguy]

There is only one correct answer on when to install security updates: once they're available for your system.