Wondering what more experienced ESX admins typically do...

I just brought our ESX hosts up to 3.5 Update 5 (Yes, I know we're behind still). I then applied the "Critical Host Updates" baseline in VMWare update manager, and found that we're still short on 14 "critical updates". My question is, do most people go ahead and apply any update flagged as critical, or do they evaluate each update one-by-one to determine whether or not the issue that has been addressed is likely to affect them.

In the SQL Server world (my alma mater, so to speak), we regularly apply service packs, and sometimes cumulative updates, but we only apply hotfixes when the issue that they are targeted towards affects us. Does the same logic hold fast in VMWare land?