Quit whining about this making old hardware useless. Older releases of distros will remain available indefinitely. Old hardware can not run modern Linux to start with. And modern systems can not use this vintage hardware. There was absolutely no reason for the modern Linux kernel to drag this code with it until the end of time.
Windows XP 4 minutes until a uasable boot?
WTF, my old Dell D800 running XP SP3 can get to a usable desktop in 60 seconds or less, and yes I have about 50 applications installed.
The trick is to keep your start-up streamlined, and always keep malware off your system.