Not patch in the sense of fixing a pile of brokenness, rather a rapid, ongoing series of improvements. The ecosystem is evolving fast, a slowly changing tool falls behind.
Interestingly, VS Code doesn't feel like it changes fast. Most new features are there to use, but not in your face.
I just realized the other day(as someone using Code since a few months after its initial pub release) that I've actually fallen far behind on the new features. I need to go back through the release notes and try out a lot of the new stuff.
I update every month and it never feels intrusive. Although I usually end up updated after any recovery release(path release) would hit haha :D