If not, why bother buying an upgrade if nothing major has changed?
Upgrades are optional, not mandatory. If you're happy with MC28 (or whatever version you're using) and you don't want to upgrade, don't.
As for LRC files, I actually had to look up what those are because I've never heard of them before. It might be interesting to see (though I wouldn't personally use it), and would probably be worth requesting in the main MC29 for Windows forum section as it'd benefit all versions of Media Center.