Forcing it does seem a little excessive

Still, I'm confused how a machine on H24 hasn't already gone to 25 via regular updates

Are there a bunch of folks who've been hitting 'don't upgrade now' since late last year?

Yes, there is a harmful meme in the world of IT/power users/devs/old people, that says you should never install updates. They are sort of right in that the updates often reduce system performance and introduce bugs, but they also patch bugs and, more importantly, security issues. A lot of avoidable hacking incidents happen because of unpatched systems.