I experienced firmware update problems once, on a brand new device straight out of tbe box. Had to do factory reset through rescue mode. Never had any problems since, on two phones. I expect it will happen again at some point, since every OS update is a game of Russian roulette - Jolla phone or Windows desktop, all the same. Dave, if you reset you pho e to factory defaults, you cannot update directly to 2.0.4. Depending on how old your device is, factory defaults take you back to 2.0.0, 1.0.4, or even (as is the case with my phone), 0.8.something. From there, you have to go through a series of updates to bring you up to date. There was a post around here somewhere listing the steps, but gou do not need to worry about that as the system will know. But that works only if you follow the standard, GUI update route. If you try cvp's command line steps when you are on the "wrong" OS version, you may well screw up your system and need to factory reset AGAIN. To sum it up, update errors happen occasionally and are impossible to avoid, but in most cases, problems exist between the phone's screen and the chair.
Regular account here on J1 with no Fiskars update either. Still on 2.0.1.11. The time you invested Dave in tablet rant,... I envy you for the spare time you have. Still completely understand you. Just please don't give Jolla such advices, as they might consider it seriously.