Yes, this reassures me. Thanks for clarifying all that to me,

Yes, but my reading of the above is that the database does, indeed, get upgraded upon major release version anyway. I'm quite sure that's the case with my node, as I waited for the db migrations to finish for a min or two....

Se7enZ

That is my impression too. But I am a bit worried that not upgrading my database may become an issue for me a few releases down the line. I wonder whether 

[1]: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/118995/destination-is-not-reachable-directly-and-all-routehints-were-unusable-how-mig

lightning

Core Lightning nodes '- database-upgrade=BOOL' true or false?

denationalized

That is my impression too. But I am a bit worried that not upgrading my database may become an issue for me a few releases down the line. I wonder whether [this guy's problem][1] is due to not upgrading their database.

[1]: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/118995/destination-is-not-reachable-directly-and-all-routehints-were-unusable-how-mig