You said it in a way that implied that previous versions were incompatible with fcam. None were incompatible with fcam. There were times when people had mis-matched modules, but there's always been a matching module somewhere.

The real problem was that for some time, mainly under Titan's kernel, fcam (which is in part a kernel module) was maintained completely in a separate package. If you loaded a new kernel, sometimes the module for the old kernel would load, but most times it would fail. When a new kernel came out, the fcam folks had to go out and recompile the module, spit out a package, and bump the version.

I believe that was fixed quite some time ago by integrating the fcam module into the kernel-power tree, so now it's where it belongs, in the kernel-modules package. But if you're not getting that package each time you update your kernel, or have a really old fcam package, it may still be mis-matched.

So to use a more "correct" car analogy, it would be like having a car with 13" rims, then upgrading to a new car with 15" rims and not understanding why your old snow tires won't fit the new car. The solution is not to blame the car manufacturer for having different rims, or snidely ask if this car can handle snow tires. It's to go ask politely about getting proper tires for your new car.

Yes, it is that easy, if you don't just randomly go out installing stuff. Before I ever install anything, I so a quick power-search here to look for a thread about it. Almost all the apps in the repositories have an announce thread, and some have wiki pages. And in 90% of the cases, there are discussions about what may cause problems, and often a solution for how to fix anything that broke.

If you have a problem after an install, especially one this concise, a simple search (with say "fcam kernel power") would show you the wiki and several thread posts about how to fix the problem. Most of them involve updating your kernel-modules package and/or your fcam package to make sure it's all in sync.

And before you say "pumping gas is easy", I invite you to ask an elderly house-wife who's never pumped gas or someone living without a car about it. Having had to instruct several people from each category about how to properly use a gas station, I can tell you it's not as trivial as you think. It may be second hand to you now, but for people not used to it, it's as mystic as loading kernel-modules along with the kernel is to you.