> Yes, you kept binary compatibility but you that created so many other problems such as not being able to use value types in generics.

This is often given as the defensible reason, but it's not even that true. Java 1.5/5 had several "breaking" changes in it regardless including the newly reserved 'enum' and a whole freaking memory model update.

And besides if any of your dependencies updated for all practical purposes you did, too, since you had to use a newer runtime to run their code regardless, it never really made sense to keep using an older javac out of spite