I also feel like it's somehow safer to use the installer instead of an OTA update...I was also experiencing freezing on 14.2 (and 14.2.1).
On this 2012 MBP 15", that started with 14.0 and was just had OTA(s) done when updates came out.
Could not figure out the random freezing that happens after running for a while. After noticing some posts here about this and solution being wipe/reinstall, I have gone ahead to do same.
Sonoma is looking stable again. Let's see what happens after a few days.
Weird, I can only guess the OTA(s) messed something up and got Sonoma funky.