This website was using WordPress 2.7. I decided to upgrade to 3.01. It went very smoothly, and was done in half an hour. I do not trust the automatic upgrading supplied by WordPress as I really want to know what is going on. For instance because it could go terribly wrong.
The Internet fora are full of disappointed website administrators complaining about their ruined sites because of a failed automatic upgrade. You cannot in all honesty expect the existence of a bullet-proof automatic upgrade from the WordPress people. Webhosters deal with firewalls and other security settings in wildly varying ways.
