For instance, today, 2/5/14, 21MB update, no description, is there any way I can see what all these little updates are changing? I'd really like to know, I'm curious what is being changed around.
Nothing has been changed unless the wiki says so. When you just randomly run the updater, it just changes stuff back to default that you modified. Not exactly sure what it'll change and leave alone, but that's what it's doing. Edit: ninja'd
It's changing all the files that aren't the same as the latest update. Just press no to those updates until a real update comes out.
Or Rename the Update.exe to Update.exe.old or .notneeded or what ever, and rename it back when you really want to update