With the recent simultaneous release of both Magento 1.9.3.0 and SUPEE-8788, I decided to take some time and review the differences between an upgrade to 1.9.3.0 and patching an existing 1.9.2.4 installation. I did a similar thing when SUPEE-7405 came out alongside 1.9.2.4 and found that the differences were minimal. In this instance, however, the