Intel wireless driver updates aren't delivered through Windows Update

For a while, I had wondered why my laptop's WiFi struggled to make any connections for a while after the machine resumed from sleep. Today I finally decided to check for a driver update. Nothing was available through Windows Update or the Update Driver feature of Device Manager. Googling the name of the Intel wireless device, however, brought up the downloads page, which had a new major version of the driver. Apparently it's entirely possible for there to be Intel driver updates without any notice through the Windows integrated delivery mechanisms.