Upgrade to WordPress 2.7!
WordPress 2.7 has been out for 3 weeks or so, and I have yet to hear of any reason not to upgrade. I’m just now getting chromick.com updated due to holiday insanity, but mostly because it’s been such a PITA to upgrade at this webhost.
However, after upgrading, I discovered that 2.7 has the ability to do ftp via the admin interface and I was able to update all my plug-ins by entering the ftp info & clicking!
Lorelle on WordPress has a great post here on upgrading, with a nice collection of links to more info for specific issues & questions.