I have always been an
early adopter of hardware and software. I have spent many hours standing in line for an Apple launch event and I install every update or upgrade usually within the first few hours after its release and I can count the number of times I have been
bitten nipped by this practice on the fingers of one hand.
For many years I kept every installer and every update to every app on CD-RWs and later a DVD-RWs until I realized I had a collection of software going back to OS 8 the vast bulk of which would neither install or run on anything I had. That made me consider how much time and effort I had expended keeping all that up to date and how long it had been since I had actually used any of those archives. I recalled the last time I had tried to use one of those archived installers, the DVD-RW media it was on was not compatible with the drive in my new Mac.
Now when I purchase a major (a.k.a. expensive) piece of software, such as Filemaker 11, or Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, as an electronic download I will burn a CD/DVD of the downloaded image, burn the registration number on the disc with Lightscribe and put it on the shelf in case it is ever needed and cull those at least once a year to get rid of the out of date titles. Other than that, I rely on Time Machine and an occasional clone of the boot drive. So far so good. I have had one total drive failure and between Time Machine and MobileMe I was able to completely recover from the backups I had without much difficulty other than having my stomach in a knot until everything was back up and running.
I use up a lot less storage space for my backup discs than I used to, and I spend a very small fraction of the time managing all that stuff than I used to.
Whether I have become more sanguine about the risks or re-calculated the risk/benefit analysis is arguable. I am not saying my approach is better or worse than yours, just different.
