I know there is a lot of capability wrapped up in the framework which enables rapid development, but for long lived applications, you're going to spend a not-insignificant amount of your time keeping up with upgrades. So in a sense, the framework itself becomes technical debt. That makes it a bad framework from my point of view.
Your code base should not be forced to be so tightly coupled to the framework that you have to spend time updating it to keep up with the framework versions (or get stuck on an old version).
When I wanted to upgrade, reading this did make me wonder a bit: "The recommended method of upgrading is to create a new Laravel 5.0 install and then to copy your 4.2 site's unique application files into the new application. This would include controllers, routes, Eloquent models, Artisan commands, assets, and other code specific to your application."
My worry was: "Do I have to do this with every version??!"
Fortunately not, but the updates did take some time; I still updated a few minor versions before moving to Symfony.
PHP opportunities are much more. I like using Symfony, though I also get Laravel or E-Commerce (e.g. Shopware, Spryker) offers. But of course this is because my profile is PHP / JS, so I get these offers.
Though Node.js as back end is noticeably increasing.
My biggest pains were the facades and also I wasn't a big fan of the Active Records (with the empty classes and only doing autocomplete by regularly generating loads of annotations).
Being a freelancer and the increasing popularity, I suppose it's worth taking a look again.
Though I'm still a bit hesitant to use it for my own long-term projects, especially since there are so many breaking changes and there are some side projects I won't be able to update for 3 to 12 months while I work freelance or build up new projects.
Can anyone share their experience using + updating a Laravel-based website which is at least 2 years old, especially regarding maintainability?