I was thinking of looking into RulesDuJour as an alternative to sa-update, as there hasn't been anything to update since July, unless one installs yet unreleased versions of SpamAssassin. ("find var -ls" to check.)
However reading this thread has scared me further. (Shall I chuck Santa Claus (rms) and the Penguin (linus) and install "WIN2000" and enjoy "Norton Daily Updates"?)