the value of saving and save as

I recently opened a simple project ( all still images) and there were several images offline. I tried to relink and figure out what was wrong for 2 days on and off. Finally I went back from version 6 to version 5 and everything was fine. I tried to save as version 6 but I couldn't ( got mssg it already existed) so I saved as version 7. I kept going back to 6 to try and figure out what happened to make some of the images offline and never figured it out. version 5 and 7 are OK. Today I deleted version 6 so it went to digital heaven.

The way I work: illustrated by this one project but it's how I work on everything.
I do stuff to version 5, I save every time I make a change. When done for the day I save it and also 'save as' version 6. Now I have 2 versions that are exactly the same. Next time I go to work I do it on version 6. Every time I make a change I save it. When done at end of session I save it, and 'save as' version 7.

So, in this case ( it doesn't matter what auto save is set to cause I do this manually no matter what the program is doing) I went back to version 5, which was last saved and duplicated in version 6... opened it and everything was online and saved as version 7.

You cannot imagine how seriously important it is to take the time and save, save as, so you don't lose your entire project. As stated, there was no way to get version 6 relinked, and I am no fool. Tried everything.

I save every time I make a change.

You know that's what Live Save is for, right?

...You cannot imagine how seriously important it is to take the time and save, save as...

For sure!!
I save like playing a Bethesda Elderscrolls game ie. Skyrim: often and many versions.
Work for awhile, save '1a'. Make some LARGE changes, save as a new version '1b'
I can easily have 20 save versions in a project.

I don't use Live Save - I want to save when I want to save.

I do use Live Save, but once an old version is saved, it stays as a file in a folder. I don't re-open it again until I need it. I sometimes even create a Project Manager folder called OLD VERSIONS just so I never open them by mistakes. No project ever gets deleted, because... "you never know."

If Version #5 has 100 changes that are different from Version #4... trust me, if I open up Version #4, none of those changes are there. It's literally a separate file. I have projects where Version #1 only has 1 timeline, and version #5 has 10 timelines. I don't suddenly see 9 new timelines appear in Version #1. If it did, we'd have a real problem here.

I think the hierarchy of project versions is sacrosanct, and Resolve doesn't tamper with anything. If you're seeing something different, I'd say something else is going on. This is also true with any media creation program like inDesign and Photoshop and Nuke and After Effects and MS Word and a hundred other programs. There's nothing unique about Resolve in that regard -- if you have 10 versions of a project, the creation/modify dates will tell you when and how they were last changed.