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Joe, I think you really have very little to worry about. If your BD's are playing fine now, they should play fine on any future machines (which, as with common dvd, doesn't preclude the odd wonky disc down the road). The vast majority of problems seem to be related to newer discs on machines without recent firmware updates. As the machines evolve, the requirements of the new discs are identified and incorporated into the newer machines. In essence, it's largely a problem of the machines catching up to the more sophisticated discs. The discs are, afterall, software and the players are small computers.

It comes to pass in the computer world that some older computers won't operate the new software. Like computers, BD specs have mandated that newer machines include things like increased onboard memory. And, like computers, increased memory and improved firmware improves playability issues.

Since the players are increasingly capable, playability with current discs is unlikley to be a significant problem later on. If you took a piece of computer software today and tried to run it in a 386SX, you'd probably be out of luck. Likewise, if you take a loaded, BD Live enabled BD-50 and try to run it on a two year old, non-updated BD player, you might have difficulty. But the BD spec is finally maturing and I would anticipate fewer problems.

I still find the degree of updating required to be unnacceptably high. But as the BD profile has evolved from the basic V1.0 to the modern V2.0, we may expect things to begin stabilizing. When BD first went on the market, we knew the spec was unfinished. We knew changes were coming. Now, with profile 2.0, disc makers and player makers have a more stable platform and a more definitive set of expectations. Hopefully, the current update requirments will lessen as we finally get all of those old firmware holes patched up.