I was going to post this as a comment to NewbieDM's blog on this subject (newbiedm.com/2010/05/05/errata-more-erra...), but it turned into its own blog entry.
First of all, thanks to the designers for the regular updates. It's nice to play a game with such great support.
Second of all, a rant.
By and large, if you're reasonable, and you play with reasonable people, the errata don't matter a whit. I'd estimate that a good 90% of them consist of clarifications to things that no reasonable person was misunderstanding anyway. I don't need the errata to tell me that I can push a target up or down an incline - yet I read a comment (which I hope wasn't serious) that wondered if the wording of that erratum meant that targets couldn't be pushed off ledges!
There are several breeds of players that make these updates necessary, even apart from those who engage in organized play. One breed are the type who scrabble for every mechanical benefit they can find for their characters, whether it's during character construction or during the game. This breed will take the most powerful options they can every time. This is not bad in and of itself except this this breed does it without regard for whether a feature or combination of features contains a mistake or is an outright abuse of the system. I read a tweet about someone grumbling that the latest update would be the third time one of his players was having to update his character sheet. Get a clue! If something in this game seems overpowered, guess what: it is.
This is also the breed that, finding their characters of their monsters shoved around on a staircase, will paw rapidly through books to find the forced movement rules and stab their fingers at whatever it was people were seriously using to block non-horizontal movement. Then these same players will turn around and teleport a target high into the air.
Incidentally, it's all for nothing anyway. The game simply isn't so hard that one must squeeze every last erg out of the rules. Character optimization is probably a fun thought experiment, but I hope no one seriously thinks such measures are necessary for a character to survive and thrive in the game.
Another breed, not necessarily entirely exclusive from the first, is the group that believes that the rules of the game are like a program and that they are merely the computers into which it is loaded. Sure, we all like to shut off our brains to a certain extent when we play, and it would be nice if the rules could only be exercised in an utterly impartial manner, but some interpretation is required. Here's a hint, a corollary to the above clue: humans don't have to get stuck in infinite loops.
There's the breed, of which I must confess to being a member, who feels that the designers of the game really don't make mistakes and if something is a certain way, however odd the results it might lead to, it was intended. I admit it, I love this game, I've invested a lot of money into it, and I get defensive when someone (even the designers!) state that some part of it was not the inspired word of an infallible and omnipotent being handed to the designers in a revelation. I have written many long posts explaining how solos, skill challenges, and Aid Another don't need any changes from the original, and how the Expertise feats are entirely unnecessary. I still think those (well, not Aid Another now) are areas for civil discussion but this same mindset led me to tell a player that his monk couldn't use Flurry of Blows after a charge, and him (when he was DM) to tell me that Divine Challenge can only damage once per use, period. My apologies to that player and all D&D players in general on behalf of my breed for the updates we make necessary - but please do clarify Divine Challenge....
We're all unreasonable at times. We're all human. This is a game with rules. We strive to do right by those rules and the designers, bless their hearts, strive to have the rules do right by us. The updates will continue, and we can all hope that things will settle down sometime before the next edition is released. In the meantime, please just follow Wheaton's Law, and if you see me, please remind me to do the same.
