Hi catfished,
No one is criticizing you for asking the right questions. But then the answers are not always that simple. Sometimes it is a benefit to use an older program version, and security wise that can be very true. I for one cannot comment on the reasons, but a bit of conservatism sometimes is the right policy. Google and Adobe had to go back from added functionality in some desktop applications because later people found it was too intrusive. The webmaster of to-day and the security man-of-old are having conflicting interests to-day. That is all I like to comment. I would further encourage you to go on with this, if there are things happening on this forum that arouse your suspicion or are not good security wise, you should never hesitate to inform the moderators. We all come here to learn, and I think your contributions are very welcome.
greets,
polonus