I've had no problems at all with 2.42, and I hope that it'll stay that way.

Sony really need to stop witht their trial and error approach to firmware recently. Each firmware since 2.40 has seemed to have had problems

The problem is, that there are ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS numerous reports of troubles with the FW updates. Many are false, some are User Error, and others are genuine but random and rare.

I spend most of my time on the Playstation forums and always see the reports to Sony and complaints, etc. , and about 95% of them are proven to be false. There are real problems, yes, but not nearly enough to say it's due to flawed Firmware. Many times it's due to certain flawed PS3s being ill-effected by the new firmware. In which case, send the PS3 in, get it (or a refurb) back, update, and boom you're alright. (Unless it's another flawed PS3, which happens and is why I don't like refurbs.)

I haven't noticed anything with mine, but haven't played any PS3 games (blu-ray) just Dragon Quest VIII and Super Stardust, as well as multiple demos and videos from PSN.

The only thing I noticed is MGS4 occasionally has that disc with the ? in the corner...but maybe thats because I left the system on for a very long time. I don't know. But as long as I can still play MGS4 and Rock Band then I'm fine.

yea, friken BD Laser of my'n is fried. my box should come today (took a whole week for it to come!) and i'll probobly be 2 weeks without a PS3.
luckily i'm buying a 360 soon and my Wii is returning from repairs.
But sony really needs to double check their FW updates.

I still don't understand this whole thing about the BluRay lasers stopping working after updates;

How is a software update affecting the hardware?

This is the topic of discussion on the Playstation forums. 2.42 brick?