I mean come on, I'm not expecting 12 years of backwards compatibility, I'm just saying that maybe one of their hardware engineers might have said: "Gee, is it possible that we might develop a new cover next year that needs power, for a backlight or something? We're under a time crunch now, so we probably won't have time to take advantage of it yet, but maybe we could add a couple pins for power to future proof it?"

It's absurd to consider that an impossible foresight to make.