While I'm not convinced about the overall necessity of the latest PS3 firmware, I did happen to find one seemingly useful feature in the update history:

"You now have an option to set the PS3™ system to turn off automatically after a background download or installation of content has completed. This option is available when you turn off the system under [Users] > [Turn Off System] while content is being downloaded or installed."

While this might not matter to some of you, people such as myself (i.e., those with a relatively slow connection speed) are often forced to download things overnight if they are of substantial size. Likewise, people such as myself have to pay for electricity. This will seemingly help me to do the former and help limit my exposure to the latter.