Getting used to EL5

When I look at the RHN system management site, it says my new EL5 system is
up to date.

I started the gui 'Software Updater' and is has maybe a hundred packages
that need updating. RHN still shows I'm up to date. System 1008341045 for
any Red Hat folks who want to verify my assertions.

I started downloading updates and have waited the first of several hours of
downloads. RHN still shows the the pretty blue check box saying I'm up to
date.

Is this this broken or is this the proper RHN status? If this is how RHN is
supposed to work, is there an elegant way of remotely determining if a
system is up to date?

On a similar topic, is there a sample of yum configuration setup so it looks
at the most popular or RedHat repo's?

Thanks in advance,
Bill Watson
[email protected]