Just a reference point. I'm running what claims to be 2.0.8. (There don't appear to be any differences from 2.0.7, but I'm not doing a compare on every file, so who knows?) I'm watching a temperature tower now. The temperature is a solid line, except at the steps. Then it's a quickly-damped sine wave down to the new temperature. (I found this version on github, when I was looking for CR10 configs. It's running on a BigTreeTech SKR Mini E3 V2.) It helps to set the PID properly, too.
But Octoprint? As soon as I (finally) got it talking to the printer, it's solid. No complaints yet.
I completely agree on explaining the bugfix a little better. I'm a newbie and have just built my printer from almost the ground up. I got a broken Anycubic and literally upgraded everything and added some extras. Anyway in my mind the bugfix version was the version that had the bugs already worked out. I tried using the 2.1xxx bugfix and starting having issues with heating and my X,Y,Z axis was acting all crazy. Plus because of this my homing feature wasn't quite homing correctly lol. Anyway I after three days of confirming my building and wiring skills I thought possibly it was the code. Flashed over a fresh version of the 2.1.2.1 (no bug fix) and it works perfectly now. With all that said...your absolutely right on a newbie thinking bug fix is an actual bug fixed version lol. Now I know.
Yeah, Marlin is a little different in that sense. The bugfix branch is more like their development branch where things are getting updated/merged in, but definitely have the higher risk of stability. I tend to always go with the latest stable version that's been released, and then if there's a problem look to see if it has been solved in bugfix by searching through issues, etc.