More likely that you've just been fortunate and not encountered the situations that the fixes and patches addressed.
Mebbe, ended up doing the same thing with XP and had the same experience.
Most of that crap had something to do with "Net" something or other and most of the time the download failed to install. Saying to hell with it all was easy.
At least a simple explanation in non-pimple speak of what "Net" this or that is supposed to accomplish would be great. Most of the "more info" stuff is useless to the non acne challenged population.