It usually has something to do with programming. Again, most cases, the versions in the packages included in your garden variety stable distros should cover most use cases.

However, once in a while one would encounter the need of using the cutting edge features on certain compiler or interpreter. Rust comes to mind. I know Python introduced some features that could drastically alter workflow (e.g. switch statement). NodeJS is another one known to be lagging behind from time to time.

In other cases, hardware support might be taken to consideration, especially for newer machines. However, with Mint including the optional newer kernel, it shouldn't be a problem.

Modem hardware.

The default kernel Mint has installed isn't new enough to support cards like the 7900 XT. Though this can be fixed by updating the kernel using Mint's kernel version utility

The only major issue I ever had with mint running relatively old packages was when I got my current laptop. Nvidia 4060 required a really new nvidia driver, which in turn required a really new kernel. I sorted it out by adding a few unofficial repos, and it worked like a charm afterwards.

Whenever old versions are giving you grief, they can usually be sorted out in a similar manner.

Hmm vim is the reason I dropped all debian based distros. Cause I wanted v8 when it was released but sorry you have to wait 2-4 years. Wasn't in the mood for compiling it myself so just went with arch based distro and haven't looked back since.