I voted for the end-user simply because it's free software. If it were a commercial product like sawmill, parallels, etc.. then I would expect consistent updates both for security and functionality.

I believe that ultimately it comes down to the end-user taking the responsibility for reading through and understanding the software that they install on their server, not just the front-end but the engine behind it.

I am very greatfull though that automatic does keep updating everything though. Without them behind the software, I would not have even considered wp in the first place and would have gone the commercial route.