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update.packages() re-downloading old versions

This looks like a case where an attempt is made to update with type="both" which will take into account both source and binary repositories for comparison, but packages can be installed from source only if the user has the tools and acknowledged that they really want to do that. As Peter said, if you want to use binaries then it's best to use type="binary" instead since it will only compare package versions based on the available binaries - and I highly recommend that as default if you are using CRAN binaries, because type="both" is quite problematic in practice, because it is attempting to merge two sets constraints and dependence graphs [one from each type] - that may not be compatible.

In practice, this only occurs in the (short) time between the source package being published and the binary being built. The Mac builds are based on the published CRAN packages from the CRAN master, so there is always a small lag between the source package being published on CRAN and the binary becoming available (typically few hours). In some cases the lag increases, e.g. around the time of a new release (like now), because we have to re-build all packages with the new R version which takes 1-2 days.

Cheers,
Simon