You're in a nice groove where this stuff is pretty easy to manage, but to a lot of people this stuff is an exasperating pain in the butt.
Realistically, though, most of these aren't VR problems as much as they're general PC gaming problems with Nvidia and Steam. I accept that price for the flexibility I get in return.
Contrast that to having no control over the various background processes and apps always loaded in memory when using a GearVR, though. Like most consumer-friendly tech, it just works until it doesn't. Then there are only three solutions possible: reboot phone, uninstall updates and reinstall them, and hope the bug is addressed in the next update, whenever that will be. (I'm assuming Oculus with lock down the OS similar to what Samsung does with Android, which means major compromises if you want to try rooting it.)
I do realize I'm in the minority that spends a few hours fixing or working around a problem, rather than shelve the unit and play update roulette in random short increments. But, with VR still in its infancy, are we/they really ready for those types of consumers? I mean, there is a severe lack of standards across the board, making handholding really difficult. Everyone threw up their hands at tablet UIs and decided to just make them bigger phones and I'd hate to see VR suffer the same fate of being dragged down by the lowest common denominator.
These are issues that occur rarely. I have less troubles using my PC than some friends do with their consoles.
It helps that Steam truly does update things in the background, and that it is possible to bandwidth throttle updates.
In comparison, a rarely played console will want to potentially spent hours on updates.
A PC has advantages because it is most likely used daily, so the updates have already happened in the background.
Honestly, both consoles and PCs are about an equal pain to keep running now days. PCs have gotten better over the years, and consoles got worse, and they have kind of met in the middle.
Occasionally I've kept Firefox tabs open four 3 weeks or something "feels a little off" so I restart more than the once a month necessary to install Windows updates, but other than that, I feel confident that I can hit the VR button on steam and have the dashboard in the helmet ready to boot a game by the time I've put the strap on.
My absolute worst experience was a game crashing VR over and over in one spot and a restart fixing it
Installing Nvidia drivers will usually set the default sound device to HDMI for your main display instead of restoring the previous default. So, it's possible to end up juggling 3-5 audio outputs after a driver update - on board, on board headphones, Vive USB, Vive HDMI, and main monitor HDMI.
I run a little Powershell script after those updates that returns everything to my settings and disable all the telemetry services/tasks, but there are a bunch of free utilities that makes audio device switching easy - Ear Trumpet, Audio Switcher, and a few others.
Also, for whatever reason, sometimes Steam just needs to be relaunched for SteamVR to work properly after a Stream client update. Very rarely I'll need to reboot for things to work properly (if the base stations don't wake up).
Finally, I strongly recommend uninstalling the advanced open VR program that's often recommended in old tips and tricks sites (it's very outdated and known to cause problems now) and run a round of "verify game integrity" on SteamVR and all Valve VR entries (from inside Stream library, right click menu).
Oh, and finally, finally, laptops/pre-built PCs will usually have some driver updater/maintenance utility adding a layer of annoyances on top of all this.
I love my Vive, but I have to admit that there can be some annoyances. OTOH, I had just as many issues with the GearVR (an Oculus product) and solutions basically boiled down to hoping it would be addressed in an update or allowing 7 constantly running background processes.