When to upgrade & how?

[ABSDoug]

My recent problems with torrents exposed a weakness that seems to be with ALL software: better to wait till the bugs get worked out.
OR...
Should I get involved?? Instead of replacing, maybe the new version should go in another partition until you trust it? I've seen you can use a USB drive, but I'm wondering why I wouldn't just make a new partition. Find a bug, file & use previous version till bug is fixed. I don't know how yet, but I'm assuming the world of Ubuntu WANTS me to test this stuff out, figure out if it's a bug, then file a bug. Maybe it's even helpful to test the unstable stuff so the bugs are all worked out before a release?