It's really that simple. It's not about IPv4 connecting to IPv6 (that would be forward-compatibility, which is impossible in that case) but the other way around.
Okay, here's the critically important thing: these are no different to each other!
Remember, at the IP level, there's no such thing as "connections". There's no state. It's all just packets being sent from a source address to a dest address. So we could put v4 into a v6 prefix, and v6 hosts would be able to send packets to existing v4 hosts -- this would work just fine. But those v4 hosts could never respond. They can't fit the response address into their dest field.
And because that's not possible, you can't make a TCP connection or hold a UDP conversation. The ability to "yell at the existing v4 internet but never get a reply" just isn't going to be enticing enough to get anybody to drop their v4 connections. Basically, the v6 designers didn't do it because it was pointless to do.