Hm. For me this is a question about interface design (vs. implementation). IMHO Unix programming philosophy is a lighthouse how to solve this commendable. In an ideal world you should have to upgrade base program and dependent libraries only if their interfaces have changed.

EDIT: And of course for security reasons - but then you only upgrade the affected player and not huge parts of your installed base. What I want to say - this is all about the ruling design philosophy.