Agreed, there are definitely advantages to having older downloads available. Having an iOS-style walled garden is a recipe for disaster, as the blessed version

Agreed, there are definitely advantages to having older downloads available. Having an iOS-style walled garden is a recipe for disaster, as the blessed version can be revoked and made unavailable by either the developer or the distributer, leaving the user out of the cold. The main issue I run into is the lack of long-term reputation, and that things that scale (e.g. allowing any user to upload files) do so at the expense of trustworthiness. I'd like to be in a position where I can recommend specific sites as safe and reliable, specifically when giving recommendations to less technically adept family/friends. However, with how quickly those reputations become stale (e.g. Sourceforge being bought out, then immediately burning its reputation by adding malware to downloads), that's not something that really can be done without coupling to a hardware ecosystem as well.