mesa 7i43 out of linucnc 2.9.1?

HI

I have an old self-built CNC milling machine with a basic system based on 7i43 and linuxcnc 2.7 and in recent days the computer that was "born" with it broke... I found a new PC with better performance and I downloaded the latest version 2.9 from the download section of the site
I go to open pncconf to configure my system and the 7i43 doesn't exist... and if I want to use it I have to install it in the firmware folder...
I have already made a similar post in the pncconf section and I understood that in the latest version of linuxcnc 2.9.1 the possibility of natively using the old mesa cards such as the 7i43 has been removed... and in pncconf it is only possible to use the new ones mesa cards with the various serial communications and the firmware inserted in the eeprom of the card...

there is no problem having to use an older version of linuxcnc on my cnc machine... it's very simple and doesn't need many new things... it also worked with 2.7

but what I wonder is what is the reason why in a system like linuxcnc it was decided to remove functionality and compatibility from old mesa cards??? I remember that years ago, in version 2.3, the 7i43 was one of the first, together with 3 or 4 others, to be implemented in the system...
if I look in the online documents of 2.9 in the pncconf section the 7i43 is covered
if I look in the mesa hostmot2 driver section there are the usual mesa cards that have been around for 10 or more years

I understand that to use Linux you need to have a minimum of knowledge of the system and know how to carry out certain operations on files and various settings, but it is also true that if a program was born with certain characteristics and functionality I would expect to find it in subsequent versions too
I don't think that leaving the basic installation of the system with the firmware of the old mesa cards would have taken away space from the hard disk or functionality from the system... we are not in 1985 when every available byte was precious as gold
and I don't think that all linuxcnc users are able to navigate the various driver and firmware installation operations... the 7i43 firmware is not actually present in the system and even if I wanted to create the various .ini files by hand and .hal cannot operate the system

I would like to understand the reason for this "company choice"... in some time the simple parallel port will also be removed from the compatibility of the basic system??? modern computers no longer have a parallel port on the motherboard... who could possibly need it?

thanks for everything
Roberto