>In the modern world, when software development speed picked up steam quite a lot, releases of new software happen much more often than distribution life cycles.

It's not just a modern thing. For no other platforms are application versions so tightly coupled with the OS version. Mac or Windows users would tell you to take a hike if you tell them they can't usually get new software without upgrading their OS. Similarly Android apps typically target somewhat older platform API versions to support users who have not yet upgraded to the latest base system.