It's not like iOS is some tiny little thing, but they got it out much sooner.
If their build process is so broken that it takes days to take the 10.9.1 tag, apply a one-line patch, and release it, then they're doing it severely wrong. Security problems happen, and you need to be ready to move fast.
Personally, if I was on that team and it came down to taking days to recompile and retest everything, I'd be seriously considering a binary patch as an interim fix. Take the actual built binaries, apply this one patch, and you know nothing else got somehow miscompiled or mislinked in the process.
If their build process is so broken that it takes days to take the 10.9.1 tag, apply a one-line patch, and release it, then they're doing it severely wrong. Security problems happen, and you need to be ready to move fast.
Personally, if I was on that team and it came down to taking days to recompile and retest everything, I'd be seriously considering a binary patch as an interim fix. Take the actual built binaries, apply this one patch, and you know nothing else got somehow miscompiled or mislinked in the process.