This looks great, thanks for the feedback @jdloudon
We'll be reducing the zip size in the next update.
As long as the host can open zips in the browser it will work
(eg: ChilliDog Hosting + Pulse)
Yes changes to a template or tags in the content have to be done manually as the Content and Template folder will be exempt. There are notes in the release notes but maybe some other update examples are needed. We are doing our best with the limited resources we have!
There is a general update note in the manual also but it's always advisable to take a manual backup before proceeding just in case (although the update should take a backup too).
We'll bear this in mind for future updates. At the moment though, we're working on 5.3.3 so more on that soon.