Does the recovery partition get updates?
The Recovery Partition does not get updated. Once the partition is created, OS X Recovery downloads the latest of your OS X version from Apple.

Extracted from Apple's About OS X Recovery:


  Reinstalling OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion via OS X Recovery requires broadband access to the Internet via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet connection. OS X is downloaded over the Internet from Apple when OS X Recovery is used for reinstallation.