Hey Jeggsy,
To answer your question,
Switch will just not restart properly after the upgrade in some cases.
in my experience about 25% did not recover after a reload.
In your case (with dual management) you can upload your newer firmware and reload the standby Management controllers. If those reboot correctly you can failover to these or reboot the active management controllers.
A full boot of the chassis is my preference, and like HP recommends seriously consider only updating from this firmware if you have someone onsite to power cycle the chassis.
Remove all power
Wait a few seconds
Restore power.
Out of 50 devices 5406zl,3500yl and 8212zl's
About 10 did not reboot correctly after the firmware update.
After a power cycle all switches recovered just fine for me. No bad updates.
And to note, NONE of the chassis with dual management modules had problems.
Those worked fine for me.
Could be lucky, since i only manage two switches with dual management.
If you havent already updated, go for it.
lots of new features and supported modules.
regards.