The issue is leadership, you're right. But it's not leadership at an individual company level. It's at a community level.

Right now, if you're in a tech hub and you tell FE people "Sorry, we're standardizing on <thing from last year> and we're gonna hold off on major release upgrades without a good reason", you're gonna lose some people and have trouble hiring or deal with constant internal complains. Why? Because their buddies in <other company across the street> aren't dealing with that restriction.

You need some serious charisma to tell people you're sticking with last year's tech and get away with it. If you're in an environment where you can do that AND still hire fast enough to grow, consider yourself lucky and hope your boss never quits :)