It's been a couple years since DOSBox 0.72 was released and I have heard that an updated version will be released soon. Will there be some form of patch to update the underlying DOSBox files on the games that I have already purchased, or will the games be repackaged with the newer version? I know that several games had noticeable performance improvements when DOSBox was updated a couple years ago, before GOG was around. I would at least hope to see something under the game forums with instructions on how to update the files if nothing else. I am sure that I would be able to figure out how to update the DOSBox files, but some GOG customers might not, so it would be helpful to know what they are planning on doing.
For example, when Bethesda released the first game in the Elder Scrolls series, Arena, as a free download they linked to an older version of DOSBox to run it. There were huge performance improvements in later versions.

I think if the updated DOSbox contains something beneficial to the game to help it, then they'll probably update the file. If the game already runs perfectly fine, well, if it ain't broke don't fix it :)

Yeah, I have some of those issues with Descent I. Did you guys find a way to get it to run better?

Yeah, forgoing DOSBox altogether and using Rebirth or D2X-XL.
Just use one of those. They're both fantastic. Rebirth is more of a no-frills OpenGL port with only minimum eye candy, focusing on simplicity and fixes. D2X-XL is a more versatile but complex overhaul which adds ALOT of eyecandy and tools for modders. Rebirth is easier to get up and running quickly, so I used that, but D2X-XL will probably be more rewarding in the long run.

I always wondered how they'd do that. They package Adobe Reader 9 into their games, and I figured that after a while there would be an Adobe Reader 100.
Off topic: I don't think they should package a PDF reader with the games, as most people have one, Adobe Reader or otherwise (Foxit is a good one).

I use rebirth. But sometimes I prefer the old fashioned look of Descent. :)

I didnt see any significant changes in the upcoming 1.0 release. Were there any?

The problem being that if they don't, they are accused of being lazy and being screamed at for not giving people a way to access the file on a fresh install.
Sort of like the old gag of having to go online to get updated drivers for your network card.

Adobe Reader is not important, you can download latest version from Adobe's site. But Dosbox needs to be updated to latest version I think.

While I expect GOG will update their installers when 0.73 is released, you can easily update DOSBox yourself by extracting or installing the new build directly into the appropriate directory; it will automatically pick up the settings and so forth of the previous version and will continue working as if nothing had changed.

Well, from my private testing on DOSBox 0.73rc1 (I was the one that wrote the news about "DOSBox project of the month" featured on Slashdot, indeed), I wouldn't expect a generalized speed improvement with the new release.....
I mean, I can't say too much but my impression is that DOSBox 0.73 will be a more "compatible" VM instead of a "faster" one.... Well, in some cases this compatibility could effectively mean a faster game, but....

An easy way for GoG to do this: release a general patching program that will overwrite the DosBox install in all your currently installed GoG games. Where to write the new DosBox files to should be easily found from the registry, then I expect DosBox is backwards compatible with the 0.72 setup for each game so there should be no problems.
Then, all the users would have to do is download and run this software once.

Well DOSBox has changed a lot. While most stuff will probably work if you simply update DOSBox, there are changes. The configfiles aren't 1:1 exchangeable.
@vagabond: Rednecks was about the missing textures/ROR problem. I didn't look at the configuration of GOG on how fast it will run.
@KingofGnG
Certain parts might have gotten faster, other parts might have gotten slower because of added complexity. However you are right in that focus hasn't been on speed as much as in the last version.