"The OS X/MacOS kernel has become far more robust. "

That reminds me Joe: this forum was founded by a guy, can't remember name who wrote a book years ago I bought, where he outlined all the kernal panics and meltdowns with Apple and how to deal with them (15 years ago)? Amazing right? You would say 90% of that stuff he wrote about is gone now?

Reading your points, this new robustness is mostly from last 5 years?

Still, on your final point, it still sounds like a good strategy to wait 8 months, no? An reason for me not too?