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brent I never heard of the old 4.2 isos giving anyone a headache.
You might want to read back into the threads from 2020 or thereabouts. Discrete graphics card drivers and wifi drivers have been a perennial problem, and that hasn't changed.
Neumie Consider: if the RX 7000 series and Intel ARC GPUs released today and someone had them in their PC. Would the current Solus ISO be enough to get a new install completed in a smooth and trouble free way? Or would they need to pass in extra kernel parameters? Or would they be stuck looking at a blank screen?
Neither is supported by the ISO kernel (5.13) or the current kernel (5.15), so both would have issues running under Solus at this point. It isn't clear to me whether the 5.18 kernel supports either/both or how well. Kernel support for the newest hardware is always a problem in Linux, because OEM's aren't diligent about delivering drivers to the kernel and the kernel always lags.
That is not to disparage/deny your basic point, which is that the Solus ISO needs to be updated relatively frequently (twice a year, maybe) in order to keep up with the pace of hardware development.
Edit/Update: I am scratching my head again this morning, trying to sort out whether or not to install Solus Budgie on my railroad laptop (Latitude 7390), rather than continue to use Windows 11 on that laptop. My brain says "No" (scaling and battery life issues) but my heart says "Yes". However that sorts itself, it reminds me that Linux presents issues beyond the state of the ISO for many users, even those using vanilla hardware.