I always wait a month before upgrading/reinstalling. I have done upgrades in the past through multiple versions and they generally go smoothly but there might a

I always wait a month before upgrading/reinstalling. I have done upgrades in the past through multiple versions and they generally go smoothly but there might a minor glitch or two that requires manual intervention to fix (usually solved though search google for advice.) Another thing I've done is keep /home on a separate partition so I can nuke everything else for a clean install if needed. In such cases, I backup the /etc directory beforehand to recover configuration details as needed.