This is a good thing. There's a constant struggle between people who want Linux to support their ancient hardware, and people who have to work with the kernel s

This is a good thing. There's a constant struggle between people who want Linux to support their ancient hardware, and people who have to work with the kernel source regularly, and would like to speed up compile times and reduce git clone times. But it's undeniable that the balance needs to be struck, and old hardware needs to be deprecated at some point. I think the tipping point should be when 99% of people who need some feature will be perfectly fine with an outdated kernel. And, I think this case qualifies.