[jariel]

"but it boggles my mind that they wanted a _less_ secure JDK."

This should not be hard to understand at all.

A lot of things may have changed in those revs, beyond the 'extra patches - those affect systems. It's likely the software was not approved in the new operating environment.

You can just go ahead and use Java 11 on software designed for Java 8, there may be issues.

The 'patch' that go into one rev is what they want - not more.

Most individuals are not qualified to make versioning decisions.

The larger the company, the more at stake.

It's possible it was due to bureaucratic numbness, and the agent probably should have maybe 'checked harder' about the new versions, but wanting a specific version is reasonable depending on the circumstances.