"All this to say, that I still run out and buy the new OS as soon as possible. The affordability and ease of doing so make it ridiculous not to. But this time I’m disappointed for one very specific reason."
"run out and buy the new os"
If you are a user to the extent that your usage depends on having access to all or certain features [1] is probably isn't the wisest thing to upgrade immediately or even upgrade on the existing disk without doing some testing.
I typically wait some time until the immediate bugs get squashed, and even then I will try to install on a different cpu, migrate things over and test before switching over what I would consider my "main" desktop machine (or laptop).
If you only have one cpu you can take the existing disk and partition it so you can boot from either the old OS or the new OS. You can setup the new OS and then use migration assistant to move over your old data. Or you can clone your existing OS on the partition (using "Super Duper") and then install the new OS on that extra partition. Which isn't a bad idea anyway in case something goes wrong.
All this of course takes having enough space to create the two partitions. But as an alternate you can also attach a USB drive and do the same. That way you can boot from either and do your testing in a controlled manner. (Note migration assistant doesn't work when filevault is on so you have to turn it off.)
The amount of effort you put into this all depends on how critical certain features are to you.
[1] I have a dns server running under 10.5 Mac OSX and the admin utility (hate it but have to use it) that runs under 10.6 or above won't allow you to access the 10.5 server. So I have to keep 10.5 running on a CPU (or as mentioned above) in order to control that server. Or I have to upgrade the 10.5 server which I'm not really looking forward to taking the time to do.
Please don't use the word CPU when you mean computer. The audience on hackernews knows what a CPU actually is, and will do a double take trying to work out what multiple CPUs has to do with running multiple different OS. I know I did
"run out and buy the new os"
If you are a user to the extent that your usage depends on having access to all or certain features [1] is probably isn't the wisest thing to upgrade immediately or even upgrade on the existing disk without doing some testing.
I typically wait some time until the immediate bugs get squashed, and even then I will try to install on a different cpu, migrate things over and test before switching over what I would consider my "main" desktop machine (or laptop).
If you only have one cpu you can take the existing disk and partition it so you can boot from either the old OS or the new OS. You can setup the new OS and then use migration assistant to move over your old data. Or you can clone your existing OS on the partition (using "Super Duper") and then install the new OS on that extra partition. Which isn't a bad idea anyway in case something goes wrong.
All this of course takes having enough space to create the two partitions. But as an alternate you can also attach a USB drive and do the same. That way you can boot from either and do your testing in a controlled manner. (Note migration assistant doesn't work when filevault is on so you have to turn it off.)
The amount of effort you put into this all depends on how critical certain features are to you.
[1] I have a dns server running under 10.5 Mac OSX and the admin utility (hate it but have to use it) that runs under 10.6 or above won't allow you to access the 10.5 server. So I have to keep 10.5 running on a CPU (or as mentioned above) in order to control that server. Or I have to upgrade the 10.5 server which I'm not really looking forward to taking the time to do.