I really think the issue on kernel is that Zorin has a wide user base of current and old machines. So if 6.11/12 had been released the upshot might have been a lot of people with freezing desktops. We have an old machine from 2006 with only 2 Gb 400 MHz RAM (Maxed out I might add), 512 Mb 8x AGP graphics, and a single Athlon 64 processor. It is running Q4OS and that uses kernel 6.1 (Plasma). Have to do updates via tty or the machine freezes. Losing the desktop widgets has helped. I also run Q40S 5.7 Aquarius on this rig and 6.1 is fast enough for me too.
It is horses for courses, but I do agree that more communication would have probably settled things down for those expecting a newer kernel. In terms of Browsers I am holding onto: zen, palemoon, and chromium.