Just to clarify terminology a bit, updating is within the same major version while upgrading is not. Going from 3.0.9 to 3.0.10 is an update, while going from 2.0.23 to 3.0.10 is an upgrade. Updates do not cause major functionality changes that will generally not break MODs that you have installed. Upgrades tend to have drastic changes (though 3.1 is trying to remain as backwards compatible as possible with 3.0).
3.0 is currently in maintenance mode, so update releases aren't very often (the last two were 6 and 8 months apart) and contain bug or security fixes.
Rhet-or-Ric wrote:But my primary question is the frequency of the "upgrades" and if the frequency might ever slow down?
The web is constantly evolving, so we typically see requests for more frequent updates. They really want more updates providing more cool features to play with. If you're concerned about updates that occur twice a year, then you'll be hard pressed to find an active web script that isn't updated at least that frequently.
You aren't forced to update your board, but it's recommended to keep it at the latest version to receive support here. When an upgrade is released, the previous version will be maintained and supported for awhile. Support for phpBB 2.0.x was dropped 1 year after phpBB 3.0.0 was released.
Rhet-or-Ric wrote:EDIT: In fact, not meaning to be impolite, but I was just trying to find another board that was updated to the latest 3.0.10 version and I am now wondering why this board only shows the copyright year as 2007? Surely this board is up to 2012, yes? I run another board I don't own that is upgraded to 3.0.8 and it shows the copyright year as 2010, so I assume the copyright year is an indication of version, no?
That is not how
copyright years work. The version number of the board is not visible on the board anywhere except for the ACP.