I am curious about this:
> I awkwardly tried to explain to our users why we made them wait five months for a release that essentially did nothing for them.
Are the users waiting? Most of the time when using software I am not waiting for new features. I am happy if you keep it stable and working. Unless there is a real pain point in some process (e.g. something very manual that you should automate).
I think it is OK to have releases with no new features.