Because version numbers are irrelevant, what's important is keeping people on the newest version. "Solving" the problem of large version numbers is like solving the problem 1/0.
At work we have a web application purchased about 18 months ago that officially don't support Firefox above 3.6. There were rendering differences between 3.6 and 4 that were serious enough to enforce that restriction for certain users. Apparently, it has begun working as expected again in FF7 (might have worked in FF6, not sure).
The application also uses jQuery 1.2.6 (released May '08) - I guess I'll be the one to QA the migration to the present day.
Hence I am not yet a believer in "latest version is the greatest version", in all cases. In principle, yes, but there are exceptions that makes version numbers necessary.
"The version number is too high" is one complaint.
"I have compatibility issues across releases" is another. They are not the same. They are not interchangeable.
What happened here perfectly exemplifies what happens every time a release is brought up. One of these complaints is brought up, then in the next breath it's switched to the other, as if we're still discussing the same thing.
We are not.
Conflating the two by bouncing between them multiple times in a discussion, every time the discussion occurs results in massive, unproductive churn.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think Mozilla will continue to support Fx 3.6 until they have a better solution for large companies. I'm not sure what that better solution would be, but I believe they're trying to solve the problem.
