Must have been ages ago, even stable now has 5.4: https://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&suite=all&...
...
Also yes, podman v4 on bookwarm was famously useless in many cases and because of either libc or kernel (iirc) you could not even install v5 effortlessly.
I like Debian and I like podman but putting this as a usefule nice experience (up until trixie released) is just weird framing.