Do not cross post. You mailed the same question to the mailing list. We have politely asked in multiple places including this sites TOS to not cross post. Thanks.
We release updates any time a security update is posted if it affects us. Meanwhile the snapshot server rebuilds images hourly with the latest updates from FreeBSD (security updates) for the really security conscious.
No I have it set at defaults, connecting directly there is no problem. I even came home and installed pfsense on my home machine to try it out and I get the same result.