Entries save but site doesn't update
Does allowUpdates and allowAdminChanges affect whether or not content will be updated on the site?


Nope.


  Thought it might be a cache issue but why would it work on dev and not prod?


Caching is my first thought. Is production behind a CDN, Varnish or some other caching solution that dev is not?

Maybe the enableTemplateCaching config setting is set to false for non-production environments?