ExpressionEngine updates don't always feel very exciting and that's just why you want to prioritise keeping your CMS up to date! Boring is much more preferable than the opposite which could be that your website gets hacked.
This is not because ExpressionEngine is particularly prone to cyber threats, on the contrary it is one of the most secure CMS systems out there. Compared to the most common CMS it does a sterling job.
However, those hackers are always busy trying to find another way to make people's lives a misery and so there is a constant battle between developers and hackers. Hackers finding exploits and developers changing the software to keep them out!
The woes of old versions
When you leave your ExpressionEngine installation uncared for on an old version, you will find that updating it becomes more costly. The newest versions of ExpressionEngine support a much simpler update method.
The other problem is that often the add-ons that you have on an old site might no longer be supported and you will need to find a replacement for them which will likely need some further work to integrate them in your templates. If you have a lot of deprecated add-ons then this issue is multiplied.
The joy of new features
Of course if you don't keep your ExpressionEngine CMS up to date then you won't get the benefit of the latest new features. These can really make a difference to the useability of your control panel and they can also enable you to have features on your website that were previously not available.
In summary
- Stay up to date
- Be efficient
- Stay safe