I still have my suspicions.

I never update like immediatly when a new version came out, sometimes it took days (for various reasons) until I allowed a program updated, and it never behaved like this.
Also, I skipped Avast 7 all togheter, and for an entire year until Avast 8 was launched, Avast 6 never complained, although to be fair, I don’t remeber if 6 had this setting.