We are deciding if we should just use the SaveAsXml of the DockManager control directly or create our own save and load logic, so we don't need to worry about updates of control breaking our application.
We strive to make sure our controls are compatible with previous versions that we have released, though we will make breaking changes when needed.
That being said, it would be expected that a document that was saved with a previous version of the DockManager should be loadable in a newer version. If it does not load correctly then we would want to know about it so that we could find a resolution.