This isn't true in the home videogame console scene. I know for a fact in the Sony PSP hacking scene, the main hackers had a handful of kernel exploits but are

This isn't true in the home videogame console scene. I know for a fact in the Sony PSP hacking scene, the main hackers had a handful of kernel exploits but are very careful about using them since SONY usually released patched firmware less than 48hrs after the exploit is public. They hope exploits carry forward into newer firmwares so that they can use them to find newer exploits introduced in that firmware so when they use the previous exploits, they can use the news ones when SONY patches the older and explore what SONY did to fix it; learn more about how SONY's devs think.