Well, after several days of trying the 5/24 updates, I can add a bit to my last (very early) report. General opinion is unchanged - it's better, but not yet really fixed. Long sleeps and docking operations are roughly at Russian Roullette odds (with only
one chamber loaded this time, as opposed to one empty, as before...) As we all know, you can't play that game for long before you lose big.
In addition to the one "Hot Bag" incident, I've had two failures to wake, both of which were after docking the SP4 in the SP3 dock while it was asleep. Failure mode for these is typical - black screen, machine "running" but completely unresponsive - Key
cover lights up when plugged in, but nothing will provoke it to show anything on the screen, so you still have to force a poweroff/reboot cycle.
Battery life is still quite disappointing, and this may be the big reason to pursue a hardware swap, since this seems to be much better on the newer SP4s. (And maybe that would avoid the Hot Bag failure to sleep problem, as well...)
In general, I've been putting it to sleep with the power button, or occasionally, the Start Menu. I'm wondering if putting it to sleep with the power button and then snapping on the Type Cover to throw it in my bag is waking it up - it then somehow fails
to recognize that the Type Cover is closed and it's supposed to be asleep...
In any case, the system should be robust to all different kinds of reasonably anticipated operator actions, rather than requiring specific coddling to avoid a (literal, possibly) meltdown.