I'm in the contemplation stage of getting a laptop and since modern laptops are notoriously finicky beasts for installing linux, I figure it will be an adventure using Slackware. I'm no stranger to wrestling with desktop installs of Slackware, but I expect laptop installs will be 'interesting'.

After the initial install, I'm wondering if recompiling and reinstalling an updated 64bit Slackware 14.1 kernel-firmware package (via the git calls in the SlackBuild package) is worth the trouble. I assume that one would probably need to recompile the kernel-generic and modules package against the installed newer firmware. Keeping the same version.

If I choose to update the kernel, it would still stick to a newer version of the 3.10 series

Is it worth updating the firmware package?

You only need to update the firmware package if there is a firmware that your laptop needs, but is not present in the current firmware package, or if there is a newer version of a firmware that your laptop needs.
Otherwise you would be just wasting your time.
Rebuilding kernel and modules is not necessary, the firmware is independent.

You can see if there were changes relevant to you in their git: http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/ker...x-firmware.git

Slackware 14.1 is still fairly current, and the kernel running fine on my newer laptop... just use the huge (default) kernel and see what you get.

If it is a really new one, you may want to think about running slackware-current (the pre-release) but as of now, it has the same kernel as the 14.1... that tho likely to change soon.