Firmware Importance

I can't understand why so many IT professionals in this day and age, don't understand the importance of firmware.
It solves known issues and is released for a reson.
1.  It solves known issues that have come out since the release of  the hardware
2. It makes older systems recognize newer technology ie larger hard drives
3. The most important one is it can't prevent data loss ... i think this is the most important reason especially for PCs , Laptops and Serves
4. In Networking Equipment it will add functionality and even in NAS devices it is key to keep your firmware up to date.

Most of the big players release firmware on a regular basis and will even E-mail you firmware changes for your equipment, then you can go and download the firmware and apply it.

I check every couple of months even though  I get mailings just to make sure I didn't miss an e-mail as that is always possible with the volume of e-mails people get today or it might have been caught by spam.