P: Panels and filmstrip black when switching to Develop

Totally agree, but regular OS updates generate incompatibilities, so perfect stability is compromised. 
There are also many who are not so enlightened and with the subscription mechanism in place, some people feel they 'deserve' regular updates, with new features, to justify the sub. 

i had the blackout problem as noted above somewhere and have rolled back to 2015.7 successfully , but have just had a thought to maybe take into the new year - and adobe i hope you're listening...
isn't it possible that adobe are trying to do too much ?
rather than a seemingly endless cycle of release-bug-fix-update-rerelease-bug-fix-update...you get the idea...couldn't we just take a pause and reconsider and thoroughly evaluate the whole lightroom system to make it unbreakably robust ?
no new features , no nothing , until such time as the system can take it...
lightroom is such a fantastic resource , an amazing tool , it's a pity that it sometimes seems to be creaking at the seams...
could it be that there are too many people out there who are continually wanting this that or the other extra gizmo that really we dont need ? i mean who really needs face recognition, for example ? dont most faces belong to family or friends who you already know, or clients whose names you should know ? or isn't this done in camera anyway ? i'm sorry to be picking on you face-recognition fans, it's just an example of extra algorithmic tinkering that may lead to weaknesses...
lightroom is an amazingly powerful tool - let's keep it that way - i believe in it so am happy to pay the subscription...just dont let yourself down..

I have rolled back to .7 and thankfully the issue has gone. It was a bit of a palaver: back to 6 and then update to 6.7, but worth it.

There is one, it's just not so friendly https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/roll-back-to-prior-update.html

Thanks for getting back Victoria. I gotta say I think Adobe should maintain an up-to-date knowledge base hosted on their own site with official support information, rather than relying on this site and less formal advice from people like yourself. Could you ask them to give their support communications an uplift?

One or two were seeing it in .7, but it was reported more in .8. So .6 to avoid completely, or .7 if you weren't seeing it before you updated.

Do we need to rollback to .7 or .6 to avoid this issue?

Adobe is closed until January 3. A rollback really isn't risky, so if you're seeing it frequently, it would be worth rolling back. https://www.lightroomqueen.com/roll-back-update-previous/

Is it too much to ask, as paying customers, for an official response as to when a fix is expected?
Without this information, it's difficult to consider whether it is worth risking a rollback to an earlier version.
I am disappointed that this issue made it past QC and am finding the wait for a fix rather excessive. Why, if we can't have a proper fix, has no hotfix been issued?

Kris Kern I did as you suggested and it worked ....for a few days. But problem is back. I'm using new camera (30mp) and now my brushes don't work.