How often to update /boot on i386 updates? Other files?

[yancm%sdf.lonestar.org@localhost]

As I accepted in:
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2009/12/22/msg011792.html

I should have read the UPDATE file in src and updated my
/boot file, at least once post the 20081122 entry to be
compatible with modular kernel changes.

Apparently /usr/mdec gets updated on each distribution install.
Should I be (have been?) updating /boot from /usr/mdec/boot on *each*
system update?

Is there any substantial risk to updating /boot with/after every
distribution install?

Matthias Scheler suggests that:
"After the 6.0 release most users should have a module aware
boot loader"
(see: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2009/12/22/msg011788.html)

How does that happen?

I'm not trying to be needlessly argumentative or unhelpful,
but as a regular release follower for ~10 years or so
for my home firewall/NAT box, I simply follow a familiar recipe to
updating, and unless I had played with --current and the GENERIC kernel,
I would not have stumbled across the /boot issue vis-a-vis the modular
kernel changes, and would not have known to update /boot without asking
for help.

Don't most users perform an update from source or precompiled
sets?

Are there other "gotcha" files like this I should be updating regularly
that are *not* handled via the standard install scripts via build shell
and/or the postinstall scripts? (I already know to update /dev - I'm
pretty sure this is documented.)

thanks,
--gene