I virtually never upgrade annually. A few things on an annual licence (eg 365) that I'll keep; a few things on an annual licence that I will review (eg EN, NoteZilla) before continuing; but mostly I either have a lifetime licence or I will upgrade sporadically - far closer to 5 years than 1. Major version upgrades are OK because there is a choice every time - but I only go with those if they are infrequent enough.
The main thing must be to avoid upsetting a group of committed users which seems to be what has happened here.