Take a look at Ubuntu, for example. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is supported until 2030. It ships with PHP 7.4. While 20.04 LTS is in support, any main packages will receive security update through backports.
So if a company settles on Ubuntu, they usually stay on an LTS as long as possible. Migrating to new OS versions is not only a cost factor, but also has risks.
So you see, it’s not that hosters are all shitty, but that they follow usual business practices.
No it wasn’t recent, because it is not latest. You might have heard there are performance boosts in every PHP update, so there is the reason to stay up to date. Apart from good practice of not staying on old versions.
I contributed code here in the past, but with your attitude I will avoid this community in the future.