I believe that they have made attempts to increase its visibility. I don't recall when the change happened, but Apple routed all system updates through the Mac App Store, pretty much guaranteeing that every Mac user will have to open the store at some point.
Yes, and this is a major annoyance. It seems I get an update for 'Pages' every day, which is why I hate using it. I have to close the documents I have open, go to the store, install the update and re-open my documents. It makes me hate MAS even more
