Unfortunately org-mode is not backwards-compatible and there have been many changes which break things unnecessarily.

For example, I once attempted to run this org-mode "notebook", ironically titled "Reproducible Research with Emacs Org-mode", and found I had to make significant cosmetic changes to get it to build: https://github.com/eliask/orgmode-iKNOW2012

Maybe things have improved since, but backwards compatibility is important for these kinds of formats.