What is the problem that we're trying to solve?

It's a PITA to support all old versions of WP. Ok, I get it. So why not simply drop the support, period? Microsoft does that, PHP does that... and so should WordPress.

I have Windows XP (SP 1) with Netscape Navigator and guess what... I got hacked. My problem.

At SatelliteWP, we do maintenance so we understand exactly the "why" of this. It saddens us to see people not take care of their site. But, at the end of the day, we can't save people that don't want to be saved. We simply have to move on.

Here is the thing that bothers me the most:

How will you update these old versions to the latest version as the process does not exist now ?

The answer: adding a "new feature" in a security release. Exactly what was done in WordPress 4.9.6 and explained in the article: Warning: WordPress 4.9.6 Really is a Major Update.

My take: keep developing this great software and provide patch. Let people and web hosts manage the "when".