SOLVED What's the consensus on having MECM at the latest version vs one behind?

[OldManWaterfall]

What is everyone's preference to how current you keep your production environment? Do you upgrade right away? Wait X days/weeks?
In this situation, I do not have a separate test or QA environment. I have always had the preference of keeping one version behind in the production environment (N-1). Meaning I upgrade to the second latest version when a new version comes out, always staying one version behind. This has been my practice with a lot of major applications mainly so I don't find myself in a version that has not had much public testing. I have found that this keeps me away from most major issues with a new version and by the time it gets superseded, most of the issues are fixed with a hotfix.
Is this an old way of thinking or is it just not relevant to MECM? Keep in mind, I am never more than a few weeks behind upgrading to the second latest version when a new version is released.
I keep hearing from consultants that its best to stay at the latest version to get "security updates", but I only ever see hotfixes for issues with the latest version. I understand if I keep one version behind, that version never gets any hotfixes and that is sort of a positive since I am basically a one-man-show and don't have time to apply hotfixes every month.
I keep hearing from the consultants that I have a valid argument, but its Microsoft's recommendation to keep on the latest release. How do I disagree with a MS recommendation and still look competent to the project team and management?

 

[Garth]

There will be no wrong answer to this. Some will upgrade ASAP. other will wait until the version they are on is well out of support.

The only "real" way to disagree with MS is NOT to disagree but instead ask for a QA lab and the time to test things. If that fails when Management to agree what any downtime cause by staying current can't be you issue without QA environment and time to test each update.