The simplistic advice you "wrote above as gospel" is incomplete and inadequate for security purposes. Keeping things updated is important - but it will not improve your security much if your basic design is flawed. To get truly good security, it is essential that you start with a well-designed foundation.
To put it in terms you can understand, let's consider the design issues of the "The Three Little Pigs". The first two little pigs were ignorant. They thought that design didn't matter, so they chose to built their houses from straw and sticks. Of course, we all know what happened to those foolish little pigs - they were eaten by the Big Bad Wolf!
But the third little pig was smart. He understood the importance of using a good design as the basis for a secure home, so he built his house from bricks. He survived! So the moral of the story is that to have "the closest you can get to safety", you must start with a good design.
It's that way with operating systems too. Microsoft Windows is a poorly-designed house of straw. Merely keeping a house of straw updated won't do much to improve your basic security.
Windows XP shipped with a known worm (known to MS anyways) for over six months before MS released a patch. And they never bothered to tell anyone before the patch was ready!
You make me laugh! To put it in terms you can easily understand, your brick house is an illusion and you are in bed with the Big Bad Wolf!
In a nutshell (a place you are probably quite comfortable), all of the houses are made of straw and believing your house is made of brick won't help you.