Canonical’s announced a major shift in its kernel selection process for future Ubuntu releases. An “aggressive kernel version commitment policy” pivot will see it ship the latest upstream kernel code in development at the time of a new Ubuntu release.
Original announcement: Kernel Version Selection for Ubuntu Releases
Compiling a kernel yourself isn’t a big deal these days, especially with DKMS. Generally the type of people I’ve encountered who care about which kernel version they’re usiyare the type of people who are capable of compiling it themselves…
I’ve found that is shifting a bit as a lot of newer hardware needs kernel support, and as new people with newer devices enter the linux world they can encounter issues. I know I’ve had to wait for feature to make it to the kernel before I got it for some newer hardware. It can be frustating especially if it’s something essential or realky desirable. Even more so if you aren’t tech savvy.