SureAI

ok then, let's say you do know how
a) do your updates manually and
b) rework SureAI's system in the way you proposed

most people want a process like this as easy as possible.
so satisfying both parties ("make it easier" and "I want more control")
would mean(probably more than) twice the effort for one? two?maybe three? people working on that
(sorry, no idea)

(also, I have no idea how any of this works, so...sorry about that)

what I do know is - it would be a whole lot more work than it's worth

sorry if I completely missed your point, but...yeah

Washing machine and scanner were an example, you have missed the point I was trying to make. If you can repair your washing machine with a manual and in 15 minutes, than there was nothing seriously broken. I was talking about how they work "in detail", meaning that you should be able to completely disassemble them and rebuild them afterwards. You can't do that with a manual, neither can your customers build these motorcycles you are going to repair. That's why they ask an expert.
Maybe I just picked two bad examples, let's take our launcher: Feel free to rewrite it in C#. Can you? No, probably not. Using your statements, we would pick our users carefully, so you would not be allowed to use the launcher. That would make no sense at all. How would you describe and define (technical) progress of mankind if it isn't building new stuff on base of the knowledge of others (Three main points of technical progress are automation, rationalization and synergy effects / positive scale effects)? Everybody should be capable and of doing everything at the same level? Can't imagine how that should be working.
As I said above reading a manual is not equal of "understanding" the thing described in the manual ...

Back to the topic, there won't be manual updates for several reasons. If you figure out how to do it on your own, then go ahead.

I'm not reading the whole thread because I can tell it turned into a pointless boxing match really quickly.

While the forced updates don't bother me, I do sympathize with this gentleman's plight. He definitely has a point that you shouldn't force your users to download more than absolutely necessary, because it's a question of accessibility. You need to understand that a lot of your audience doesn't have access to some nice things, like unlimited bandwidth, that we take for granted. If someone complained because they're colorblind and it made something in the game frustrating, you wouldn't tell them "It's not our fault you're colorblind".

By "it's an easy fix", I'm guessing he was referring to letting people run the game without updating. I know outdated bug reports are a pain, but I would argue that losing players that can't download the updates is worse.

I don't think this thread will recover from the chaos its in, but hopefully I added something worth reading.