He said he didn't apply kernel patches, yet you defend him. LMAO!
You still miss the point--while the kernel wasn't patched right away, the patches were irrelevant.
The fact is that there's the principle of primus non nocere--above all, do no harm.
Rather than putting patches on that could screw with the system, it makes more sense to hold off and only put what's necessary. Those kernel patches might have made the system current, but were they really necessary? That's the point.
This clearly shows you have not one iota of knowledge regarding *nix systems--after all, even I can figure this out, and technically, I'm still rather largely inexperienced with it.
See the thing about GE is he worships the vendor, I like to have a relationship with them but what is the point of having a highly skilled IT department if all they do is whatever the vendor tells them. Why have an architect if not to realize that a good deal of vendor patches and configurations are not optimal / necessary and are designed only to cover the vendors rear end not increase your server productivity..