I have never used KKmanager after the first attempt. It will always try to update all zipmods and that would take hours.Is it just me or is KKManager slower than dripping honey in winter? And those stupid mods keep updating again and again. I just downloaded the entire zip worth hundreds of GB and KK says I gotta download like 25-30 GB more.
For Studio: if you need the new zipmod version for some reason, it would be much better if you can get the individual mod (that you need) from the source (like Discord or Patreon) and update it yourself. Most of the time you won't need to update the mod (if it looks the same). You would only need to update the mod if there is significant change, or the old version just doesn't work. If you are in the middle of doing something in Studio, keep in mind that new Repack version could change a lot in the way things look, mod are added or deleted, that might make all of your previous work useless.
For playing the game, you won't need most of the zipmod, and you don't need those that are only used in Studio.
First time I use AI was R4. First upgrade was R8. Now, I use R14. I don't see a reason to keep it up to date (if it's not broken).