Actually there would be a way to avoid the version choice screen of tb-updater. The version choice could be disabled by default. RecommendedTBBVersions file by The Tor Project would be ignored. Instead tb-updater would go ahead and download the version as defined in tbb_hardcoded_version.
I have to keep the tb-updater package updated for the tbb_hardcoded_version file in context of Tor Browser Essentials anyhow.
After I am notified about new Tor Browser stable versions, I usually lack 1-2 days behind until updated tbb_hardcoded_version tb-updater package ends up in Whonix stable repository. The manual version choice could become a command line switch --choice or so. And once sort of cumbersomeness, the version choice would be replaced by a different sort of cumbersomeness: tb-updater would have to be updated (for most users not knowing about --choice using apt-get before ruining update-torbrowser starts downloading current versions. Or before tb-updater starts working again at all - in case the older version has been removed by The Tor Project already.