The difference, if I read gp correctly, is that an older major release would still get new security updates when necessary, but if you already are on the current major, which had been out without this problem for quite a while, you will only see security updates bundled with minor feature changes like the one that introduced the JVM incompatibility.

Not really an Apple-specific problem, it could hit anyone who supports multiple versions without opening that can of worms of allowing completely free mix&match of fixes and updates.