In reply to Mike W.

I wanted to add that the reason many of us do not want to auto-update is that we use plug-ins or themes that may BREAK if they have not been also updated to accommodate the latest WP version. So I would go to my plug-in or theme author first to see that it works well with the latest WP update BEFORE I update WP. I could also try the plug-in on a WordPress Domain that I keep just for this purpose, to see if it will work okay with the latest update .

Another method would be to at least wait a month or so before updating just to give the plug-in and theme folks plenty of time to update their products.