Put in a support ticket. The problems with the software updater has been posted already by multiple people in the forum. Posting in the the forum isn't a very reliable method in actually reaching the Avast people with your problems.
I have personally given up on the software update as reliable indicator of anything. Chrome as you said as been outdated for weeks, I have seen Java outdated for days also, and as of right now Firefox and utorrent are outdated.
I recommended Secunia, or Filehippo updater checker + Ninite to stay conveniently updated. I dont use secunia, but you can set filehippo to check for updates daily, and then just use ninite when it detects something.