DJ, FWIW:
The policies of the various OS-level package managers tend to make it difficult for maintainers to update packages frequently. Taking Ubuntu as an example, packages in ubuntu repos stay at the same version for the entire release cycle of the Ubuntu release that they are on unless a newer version is backported via the backport repository. In practice, this generally means that most packages are up to 6 months out of date most of the time—and packages on older releases can be years out of date. (Other distros such as Arch use a rolling release model that effectively means that packages tend to get update every few weeks rather than every few quarters.)
For any software whose rate of change exceeds the rate of change allowed for by the release cycle or other maintenance practices of your distro, it's best to seek alternate sources if you intend to use latest versions. The general strategy for acquiring newer versions of software through your OS-level package manager is to find alternative repositories. For Ubuntu, this means the use of PPAs.
However, if you combine the difficulty in installing the latest HP with the fact that it has more or less fallen into disfavor with the introduction of Stack, which manages its own installation separately from your OS-level package manager, the best solution for most people is probably just to use Stack at this point.