I'm pretty handy with the computer. However, I have some friends that are not and the service pack 3 update on windows xp (remember that mess?) pretty much screwed up their whole system. I had told them to hold off on the SP3 update but they insisted they wanted to keep auto updates on. I can see your point but after what I had read about all that, I glad that I hold off on OS updates. I had problems with an update a long time ago not meshing with my kids' homeschool software. That was a mess that held up schooling for about a week.
I do wholeheartedly agree that simply not doing updates is a really really bad idea though.