I stick only to LTS releases. I'm in no need for bleeding edge features, and I'd rather have a system that's much more likely to be stable.

I'm all about the penguin method of upgrading. Wait to see if there are seals in the ocean that eat the early penguins.

What if the orca ate all the seals!?

I stick to LTS. I sometime have to update the kernel because of hardware devices or special needs. But even then, I use grub to pick witch kernel I wanna use.

Once the next LTS is out, I usually wait a few more months. I'm not a big fan of having my workstation not being able to do basic things. ( no hard feelings, I trust the process )

I used to add the new release repos after kernel freeze, sometimes earlier. For the last many years I remember absolutely no breaking.

(Using Xfce, but also have KDE and Gnome installed too.)

Across all my OS I usually wait a month or so for major upgrades (exception: Gentoo which is rolling) - unless there's a new feature I really need.

I use LTS and install newer version of things I need using guix.