You do not need a computer to update the HEX-NET. The USB utility is an alternative that may be better or easier in certain situations, such as if you are unable to tether or have bad cell signal. The exception to this may be certain recovery type things which we may not wish to do over the air.
Excellent!
Using the utility in a backup/rescue scenario is understood. We're just trying to understand day-to-day normal operations.
These are bootloader and filesystem related items. We do not expect these to be updated very often, if at all.
Okay, but those were two-part questions.
Does anyone NOT using the USB updater care if it's out-of-date?
If I'm updating OTA only, I won't have gotten the updated BL/CFB objects you sent out a couple months ago. If I'm working fine with just OTA updates, then I didn't actually need those BL/CFB updates, so why did they get pushed out at all? On the flip side, if I do have to have those BL/CFB updates, then "You do not need a computer to update the HEX-NET" isn't really a true statement.
I've been ass-u-ming the BL/CFB updates were in service of the USB update process, thus both statements can be true: they're delivered via USB only, and OTA users don't care about them. As you can see, though, it's become something of a hot topic so we'd like to know for sure.
Jason