It's good that the project is developing, but every fork is a signal about shortcomings. Ideally, forks should not be, or they should be very, very rare. I hope in the near future there will not be another fork)
Agree, it's a bit confusing for new users.
Well, as far as I know, Monero has scheduled hardforks every six months. They are mostly important for the miners, I am not sure whether users really have to go along with every single one.
The basic idea is that you have a given schedule to follow. Miners know what to look for and you have the ability to push just about anything if needed.
I'm not sure whether Ryo said anything about adopting this mechanism, though.