Thunderbird 128 was recently released and as with previous stable releases it is accompanied by the message that " Thunderbird version 128.0 is only offered as direct download from thunderbird.net and not as an upgrade from Thunderbird version 115 or earlier. A future release will provide updates from earlier versions". I believe this is done as a precaution to address potential bugs before wider release to all users.
Yet, as in previous years, the initial release is offered almost immediately on the snap stable channel as an update to users. Why wasn’t the update held back in the latest/candidate channel until the future release of a version deemed stable enough by the thunderbird team to be offered as an update to the previous ESR version?