I understand this might be completely unavoidable because y'all are making game-world changes when the updates are applied. However, the inconvenience during Alpha/Beta could possibly be mitigated by giving the player a "Tent Slot" just like they have a rifle slot, a melee weapon slot, a backpack slot, etc.
That way, even though players still have to strike camp before the weekly update, they could at least retain a backpack worth of stuff each in addition to their super-rare tent.
I have no idea if this occurred in previous versions.