Whilst I'm not going to defend the uplift of versions, the primary cause of the version uplifts isn't because of new core language features or syntax changes: the last big change there was v4 (I think).
But it's more that Powershell is really bash + binutils + netutils+{some other utils}. i.e., the cmdlets shipped tends to morph much more than the underlying language.
Yes, there's an argument for splitting powershell into what's really core (i.e., the PS engine) and the cmdlets, and updating them separately. A case in point is some of the new networking cmdlets - there's no real reason these couldn't be made available in earlier versions of PS: I expect some of them are binary addins rather than PS scripts - so upgrading the entire package just to get a couple of new cmdlets is a nuisance.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
