I personally run on latest, apply all updates zealously within a week or two.
They have different goals/purposes, often, and they frequently don't line up with my own.
Maintainers are exhausting in their own right, they do a ton of work and so they think their decisions are more important because of the work they do, user be damned...
Authors usually only care about their version of the software.
I think, a better medium, would be if a third party is packaging an application, perhaps they should always explicitly state they are the ones packaging it. Then there is less confusion.
Or, you know, let the author keep control of that...
> To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to run old, stable software.