Just a general question to as what holds Drupal back from being able to use the latest version of jQuery? I am guessing it is something technical but would like some details.
Even jquery update module only updates a few versions for Drupal 7 it goes for 1.4.4 to 1.5.2 while Wordpress ships with 1.7.1
My understanding is that the version of jQuery gets locked down with the version of Drupal during development to ensure stability. It is all part of the testing process. The Drupal developers fully test the system before releasing a new major version of the CMS, including the JavaScript functionality. The incremental changes that go on throughout the year do not provide the time to test at this level so the jQuery version stays the same.
I am not very familiar with Wordpress, but my understanding is that they make considerably more regular major upgrades to the versions of their CMS. So jQuery gets updated more frequently. However, from what I've read little testing takes place.
While getting stuck with an old version of jQuery can be frustrating, I'd rather go for a stable well tested system.
The project page for JQuery update module is not quite up to date. Have a look at this issue / patch: -- It's still be worked on so use with care but it looks promising and it looks like it's getting attention and recent as well.
In your tags you did not specify what version of Drupal you are using though, the issue above is for Drupal 7. (That's one of the gotchas of Drupal, sometimes lurking around in the issue queues can yeield some nice finds and solutions that may not be evident yet on a module/s project page.
