Consumer branch updates are automatic. I’m not sure what they’ve done behind the scenes to avoid the issues you’ve cited, which are rare but have happened in the past. I’ve not noticed any issues so far, but it’s only been like 3 or 4 months. Businesses can get onto a slower update track, I know, where they get chunks of non-critical updates like every 3 months.
I know their current model is designed such that updates are cumulative and build on the prior builds, so picking and choosing not generally doesn’t make sense. I have to assume this goes hand in hand with some sort of improved/changed quality control and testing measures before pushing an update out. On the other hand, the cumulative nature ensures that all Windows 10 machines should have the same basic software running so the odds of an update breaking some users machine are far more slim than allowing users to pick and choose.
It is Microsoft, though, so who knows if they’ve actually learned their lesson. So far it’s been a very smooth and painless process and definitely is a more modern approach to an operating system than before. I suppose we won’t know until probably this time next year if the quality control has been improved for certain.