If you don't actually use the mario kart channel and stuff then they stop coming eventually

I did but I got my graphics card burnt and now my Wii displays some artifacts, it's turned off now of course...

Yes

No, I haven't had internet on my at all for a while. 

So, if I start playing MKWii again, they'll start giving me weekly content again?  If so, I may just have to dig that game out, again.

I'll agree on that. It's far less than what Nintendo promised, and even has fallen off from how Nintendo used it in the early days. Makes me wary about their promises regarding 3DS's push system.

But its not the bandwidth concern, but power usage. I leave mine on anyway, but that's where the benefit is.

ha, that also happened to me a couple years ago. Since I recieved the new one back from Ninty I've also left it on and no issues since. However, recently I have also thought about turning it off as it just seems like a waste, a very small waste, but a waste none-the-less. I will probably also go in and set it off.

Question. When its off, how does it know of updates? Does it just check for that when you turn it on to play games?

You know that's covered under warranty right?

Seems like all of the updates that we've been getting lately have been to benefit Nintendo, not us.  I don't use homebrew or lennox or anything but all of the recent updates were just to combat that.  Any update that's worth while will probably be on copies of the next "must play" Wii game, anyway.

Unless Nintendo did a firmware update that changed system functions, the fans stay off in standby mode even if WiiConnect is left on which did lead to a number of fried GPUs as some here have experienced.

I don't personally see much benefit to the function (in all fairness, I rarely use my Wii anyway) and always hold the power button until the red LED shows when powering off.

From what I remember, standby mode on the Wii uses something like 10 watts of power, which isn't exactly negligible.