I'm perfectly fine with them since most major firmware updates usually result in an upgrade of the UI and other features & improvements for the particular console in question.

The one thing that does bug me (especially with new games) are the constant software mini-updates you have to perform before you launch the game, usually within the first few weeks of release or when DLC packs are released even if you have no intention of purchasing them.

I don't know if you can call updates constant. They come once a month at most, and then finish installing in several minutes.
If they bother someone, that person can either wait 10-15 minutes and do something else, or keep his console on standby and the update takes care of itself.
Every update brings some improvement, no matter how big or minor it is. I'd rather wait 10 minutes every day if necessary, if that meant better usage if my console. It must have sucked 15-20 years ago, when you would buy a console and have it stuck at square one for the next half decade.

Yeah we suffered hard with games that worked right out of the box, no installs, no day 1 patch downloads, it was tough. Before that with cartridges we didn't even have loading times, all very annoying.

These updates are not a big deal if you use it daily. For the casual user that plays a few hours every other weekend and thus doesn't leave it in standby mode, yeah it's annoying. Especially when you want to play an old game for a bit online and you both have to download a bunch of patches first.

You completely missed the topic, as it is about console firmware updates, and not about individual games. 

And since I have PS4 now I have no idea what happens with game updates, but in my X360 days, those updates were mostly 3-4 MB and would have been done in a matter of seconds, there was never any extensive waiting.

People will complain just about anything these days, it seems.