Only a fool runs software that can't be tested before being put into production and after pitching a fit I finally let you talk me into being that fool. Thankfully nothing is broken here, except my rule.

I keep forgetting that this is complete amateur hour over here. Your finger pointing at the WP ecosystem and its customers just drives the point home a bit deeper -- you do not understand how this business works. You might want to do an exchange program with a major database or crm company for a while.

I'd advise anyone of this basic take home lesson that amounts to little more than what you were sent into the real world for a summer to pick up when you interned in college: Snip the auto-update feature, don't update until the first point release is out and you have had the next version running real production data in the test environment. It is not really a lesson. It is the way people do things when their company/job depends on it.

We had side bets on this among the owners. Somebody gets free drinks tonight.

Good luck!