Newbie alert

["Mark M. Wilson" <mmwilson ncsl dcr state nc us>]

I just installed I-can't-remeber-which-version of Gnome the other day on
my machine (an [old] 486 133-MHz with 32MB RAM I got from my neighbor).
I can promise you it's not October Gnome, because I got it off the
RedHat 5.2 installation CD that came with a copy of "Linux for Dummies"
2nd edition. In fact, the documentation in the archive on the CD
referred to it as a beta release, if that helps give a clue how old the
packages are).  My question is, since I haven't really had time to
explore it yet, although it seems to be all in working order, is it
worth my while to try and upgrade to October?  Or should I just use what
I have for awhile and read all the documentation I can find in order to
appreciate what improvements there may be?  I'd appreciate "y'all's"
(geographic giveaway--I threw that in for fun) thoughts on the matter.
(No, I'm not a bubba).
Thanks,
Mark M. Wilson