These type of blog entries were always popular in the Windows XP and Windows Vista time frame. You'll notice that this list is smaller than the Vista post-RTM / pre-SP1 list I made a few years ago. It isn't a coincidence. There were some major overhauls and redesigns in the Vista time frame.
Despite what the press might have said, and what users experienced during the early days of buggy Vista drivers, the end results have been mostly worth it. You see Windows 7 getting "rooted" must less often than XP, and the same can be said for malware especially if you leave UAC enabled. I tend to restart my laptop only when security updates come out, otherwise I put it to sleep or hibernate. Some of these fixes listed below are related to sleep and hibernation issues and have definitely helped me.
Keep in mind, if you aren't having issues with the items below, you can safely skip installing these. Many of these are corner cases or uncommon scenarios, but I happen to hit a few of them.
Core OS
KB
977346 - The Welcome screen may be displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process after you set a solid color as the desktop background in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
977542 - A hotfix is available to block standard users from logging on to a Window 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer in safe mode
KB
976746 - Error message when a Windows Server 2008 R2-based or a Windows 7-based computer enters hibernation: "STOP: 0x0000000A"
KB
975992 - After you enable large pages for a process in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2, the process stops responding intermittently
KB
975680 - Virtual Disk Service (VDS) crashes when you try to extend a dynamic volume in an NTFS file system on a computer that is running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows 7
IDE/SATA/Firewire
KB
976418 - After you change the SATA mode of disk devices to use the AHCI specification, the computer or certain applications randomly stop responding for 60 seconds or for longer in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
977178 (newer than KB 976418) - You receive various Stop error messages in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 when you try to resume a computer that has a large SATA hard disk
KB
975500 - Low performance when you transfer a large file between an external IEEE 1394 device and a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
977186 - Error message when you try to resume a Windows 7-based or a Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer from hibernation: "Stop 0x0000009F"
Multimedia
KB
975538 - Audio devices are missing or are displayed as "Not plugged in" after you restart a the computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
975450 - You may experience display corruption issues on certain Intel graphics processing unit (GPU) chipsets in Windows 7 (hardware bug - use driver 15.4.4 or higher)
KB
979303 - Audio playback and capture applications hang
KB
975806 - The video image flickers when you configure Windows Media Player 12 to display the subtitles of a DVD in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
975617 - An update is available for the UDF file system driver (Udfs.sys) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
976417 - High CPU usage in the Explorer.exe process when you open a folder that contains corrupted .wav files in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2
Networking
KB
976658 - The memory of the nonpaged pool may leak when you enable IPsec on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7
KB
975851 - When you resume a computer that is running Windows 7, WWAN devices do not automatically connect to the target 3G network
KB
978869 - Error message when you try to open a network-shared application on a client computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2: 0xc000000f
USB
KB
978258 - USB devices that are connected to a computer may not work after the computer is idle for more than one hour Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
974476 - The computer stops responding when an USB device resumes from the USB Selective Suspend state in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2
KB
975599 - Stop error when you put a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 to sleep or into hibernation, or when you restart the computer: "0x9F"
Virtual PC / Windows XP Mode
KB
977632 - A computer that is running a virtual machine in Windows Virtual PC may stop responding or restart when you resume it from sleep or from hibernation in Windows 7