Yes - a lot of mods do require recent G/ZDoom dev builds. This happens because people get very excited with the newest features (this time around, it's portals and post-processing in GZDoom) and the release schedule is, as you said, very sparse.
As far as bugs go - all I
can say is this. Just by clicking on each 4 of those links, you can quite easily see that bugs do get frequently reported and fixed. Those are really the only bugs we "know" of. If someone knows a bug and they haven't reported it in one of those 4 links I posted - well the first question that's going to come up is "why didn't you report that?"
Don't let my speech of "should" and "should not" discourage you. You are free to use whatever builds you want. Those come from a set of beliefs in the spirit of the entire dev build system and why it was originally created some 7-8 years ago. When I launched the site they were never meant to become official - and in fact they are still labeled as unofficial - but they have become fairly official now given the support both source port authors and team members and operators have given it.
But to answer your question, you "should" use recent ones the same reasons you use any recent versions software - and if there are problems you need to report them.
GZDoom does currently have quirks at the moment due to the new system being implemented, yes, but they are being ironed out. Your feedback, believe it or not, is needed to help with that. You're free not to help - you're free to use your 6 month old dev build as much as you want - but were I in your shoes I'd jump in with the latest and greatest and start testing and reporting.
The non-rendering ZDoom back-end (the part that handles monsters and stuff) is actually extremely stable right now. The trouble both ZDoom and GZDoom suffer from at this point is purely from a rendering perspective. We're hoping Randi comes back sometime soon so she can fix the ZDoom render stuff, since she's the only one who is comfortable diving into that code right now. I think I could tell you why she didn't, but out of respect for her I will let her speak for herself if she wants to when the time comes - that, and I don't actually know, I'd only be guessing.
However, GZDoom has a very active team on it right now. If there's a renderer that can be fixed - GZDoom can. So use it. Post bug reports on it. Those bugs are far more likely to be fixed in a reasonable time fashion than the ZDoom ones (again, with the exception of the non-rendering back-end stuff).
Yes - a lot of mods do require recent G/ZDoom dev builds. This happens because people get very excited with the newest features (this time around, it's portals and post-processing in GZDoom) and the release schedule is, as you said, very sparse.
As far as bugs go - all I [url=http://forum.drdteam.org/viewforum.php?f=24]can[/url] [url=http://forum.drdteam.org/viewforum.php?f=25]say[/url] [url=http://forum.zdoom.org/viewforum.php?f=2]is[/url] [url=http://forum.zdoom.org/viewforum.php?f=7]this[/url]. Just by clicking on each 4 of those links, you can quite easily see that bugs do get frequently reported and fixed. Those are really the only bugs we "know" of. If someone knows a bug and they haven't reported it in one of those 4 links I posted - well the first question that's going to come up is "why didn't you report that?"
Don't let my speech of "should" and "should not" discourage you. You are free to use whatever builds you want. Those come from a set of beliefs in the spirit of the entire dev build system and why it was originally created some 7-8 years ago. When I launched the site they were never meant to become official - and in fact they are still labeled as unofficial - but they have become fairly official now given the support both source port authors and team members and operators have given it.
But to answer your question, you "should" use recent ones the same reasons you use any recent versions software - and if there are problems you need to report them.
GZDoom does currently have quirks at the moment due to the new system being implemented, yes, but they are being ironed out. Your feedback, believe it or not, is needed to help with that. You're free not to help - you're free to use your 6 month old dev build as much as you want - but were I in your shoes I'd jump in with the latest and greatest and start testing and reporting.
The non-rendering ZDoom back-end (the part that handles monsters and stuff) is actually extremely stable right now. The trouble both ZDoom and GZDoom suffer from at this point is purely from a rendering perspective. We're hoping Randi comes back sometime soon so she can fix the ZDoom render stuff, since she's the only one who is comfortable diving into that code right now. I think I could tell you why she didn't, but out of respect for her I will let her speak for herself if she wants to when the time comes - that, and I don't actually know, I'd only be guessing.
However, GZDoom has a very active team on it right now. If there's a renderer that can be fixed - GZDoom can. So use it. Post bug reports on it. Those bugs are far more likely to be fixed in a reasonable time fashion than the ZDoom ones (again, with the exception of the non-rendering back-end stuff).