leftj wrote:
Just for the record. In my 20 yrs using Apple I have never experienced a problem with operating system upgrades.
I used to be a Mac Systems Manager in a photo lab. Most of the time, things went well. But every now and then, we had problems. Most of the hardware problems were caused by our vendors (Apple Authorized Dealers) supplying the wrong RAM upgrades, or installing them incorrectly (insecurely). That was such a common problem with Macs that Apple said, "No more! We'll solder it in for you. Buy what you need up front."
We had over a dozen PowerMac G3s. Four of them had bad (loose) RAM sockets on the motherboard. Our 24 PowerMac G4s were all good machines. We had some Power Computing Mac clones, back before Steve Jobs returned to Apple. They were FAST, CHEAP, and JUNK. Thank goodness he bought them out and shut them down.
Some older Macs had RAM sockets that could receive several different types of RAM, but if the modules were not matched for speed and wait states, all hell broke loose. Some vendors (Kingston, for one) sold RAM for PowerBooks and MacBook Pros that caused motherboards to fail. I had two such incidents on my Macs. Apple fixed them under AppleCare, but told me to deal with my vendors on the RAM issue (I did, and everything was fixed free of charge.)
Just like Microsoft, Apple had its issues with operating system releases. System 8 was a problem. 8.1 fixed those problems. System 8.5 was a problem. 8.6 fixed those problems. System 9 was a problem. By 9.2.2, it was stable enough to move things to OS X.
By OS X 10.3.2, things were usable again, and we upgraded from 9.2.2. The switch from PowerPC to Intel was RISC to CISC, and included an emulator for Power PC applications, the first Rosetta. It happened when OS X 10.5 came along. By 10.6.8, things were stable. That was Apple's equivalent of Win XP. I skipped 10.7 through 10.9. I have had no real issues with the second point revisions of MacOS 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, or 10.15.
I bought my first Apple Silicon Mac after waiting 9 months for my applications to catch up. By then, we were on system 11.3 or 4, and all was well. Apple Silicon has been the most stable of all the systems I've used. Everything has worked well, after the second or third point revision.