I kind of think it’s just reputational hangover. Everyone remembers how bad Windows Vista was because Windows XP had been so great, however Microsoft came along with Windows 7 and improved the windows reputation. In the Linux world people aren’t really doing big promos which garner a lot of media attention regarding new kernel versions or new DE’s. Ubuntu is really the closest this ever comes but I’m sure if there was someone being a bit more like “Arch 2028! Our most stable version yet!” and hyped it all up and did a bunch of promos the reputation would shift more.