If you wish to distribute binaries rather than source for users to compile, you can not rely on the system libraries because that can get updated in a non compatible manner any time. Thus you need to package all of them all the way up from libc with your application (basically what windows and macOS apps do). So in regards to the original criticism of elementary not being updated often enough, I do not think it is an issue for development because it gives you a longer living target. As long as you get the security updates.