Your recent experience with the firmware, and your initial caution about upgrading, is warranted.
On the question of whether “Creality does a great job” with firmware, though, I think their documented track record with the K2 series points in the opposite direction. There have been numerous firmware releases discussed on this forum that fixed some problems while introducing others, along with hardware and software issues that have remained unresolved through multiple revisions.
That is really my criticism of Creality. I don’t question whether they are continuing to develop the product. I question the consistency of their testing before releasing those changes to customers.
I posted about this recently in a thread where a new owner described both the features he liked and the problems he encountered within only a few hours of ownership: Experience so far - #2 by JoeFriday
I keep a troubleshooting log for my printers, including my Bambu P1P, documenting problems, fixes, workarounds, and firmware changes. That post contains only some of the K2 items in that log.
Here’s one practice I’ve found useful: I disable the firmware-update notification because, for essentially the reasons you described, I don’t automatically trust a new release.
Instead, I periodically review the K2 firmware release notes and have AI compare the listed fixes and enhancements against my troubleshooting log. Unless the release fixes a problem I’ve actually experienced, or adds something I specifically need, I leave the working firmware alone.
For me, Creality’s firmware history has made the risk of upgrading simply because a new version exists not worth it.
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My principal grievance with 3D-printer manufacturers, and Creality in particular
For years, much of consumer 3D printing was built around open-source hardware and software, and Creality became enormously successful by commercializing inexpensive, ready-to-use printers based heavily on those established concepts. I don’t consider that a criticism. It was extremely useful for those of us who wanted the benefits of that technology without building a printer from a kit.
But the market has changed.
Machines such as the Bambu X1C pushed consumer 3D printing toward something much closer to an appliance: load filament, send the job, and reasonably expect it to work. Nobody has completely achieved the inkjet- or laser-printer level of reliability yet, but that is clearly the direction the industry is moving.
Creality answered that change with the K1 series and later the K2. My problem is that too much of the old development philosophy appears to have remained:
“Release it, let the users find the problems, and let the forums develop the workarounds.”
That is my characterization, not a literal Creality policy, but it describes my experience with these machines remarkably well.
That approach may have been tolerated when consumer 3D printing was largely an enthusiast hobby where modification and troubleshooting were expected parts of ownership. It is not good enough for a product being marketed as a modern flagship appliance.
The K2 Plus is a good example. I have encountered a number of issues that should, in my view, have been caught during product validation.
One of my particular annoyances is the poop chute when printing multicolor with a 0.2 mm nozzle. The finer purge material repeatedly hangs up rather than falling cleanly through the chute. Based on my testing, the geometry of the chute appears to be the problem: it is long, relatively shallow, and poorly suited to that type of purge waste.
The more aggravating part is that the original K2 Plus chute design was subsequently changed. Even so, with the redesigned parts they did not address the geometry failure just changed up the mounting holes. This made replacement parts for my version impossible for me to obtain.
I ultimately had to design and 3D-print my own workarounds.
That is exactly the sort of problem I don’t expect to be solving myself on a product sold as the company’s flagship printer.