Our Website Design is Terrible

By the sounds of it you already have, so why you feel the need to use every post to bash this framework instead of simply move on, I have no idea.

I do still have some projects with CI. I like the CI framework because its the first one I started with. So there is some nostalgia there.

What you see as bashing. I see as voicing my opinion on where things can be reversed for the better. If these things I was bashing where resolved. I would have no more reason to complain. See how that works?

With EL's needs, it needed to stay compatible with their products and the methods they used within those products, as well as stay compatible with as many servers as possible to be able to sell their CMS to as wide as an audience as possible.

Take a look at shared servers, though (which is where many projects that people want to sell to customers will actually run) and you'll realize only a tiny fraction of them support the latest versions of PHP which, as a business-decision, doesn't make sense.

You obviously have never worked for companies which supported various installations. I have. In the case of Codeigniter, which I have mentioned in the other forum and which I will mention now again. As you don't seem to get it. There could be the following:

CI 3.0 could be the last edition on php 5.2.6. Get it out of the door and then draw a line under it. Have some resources to do security fixes but then it no longer gets any updates. It's done.

CI 3.0 would be for users who are on shared servers or for applications which no longer have active development or may other cases where development has stalled.

CI 4.0 could be php 5.5/5.6 only. Has all the latest features and whizz bangs. CI 4.0 could be for projects which are having active development where they can be upgraded to better frameworks.

Now, do you see how this works? CI 3.0 caters for everyone. You can upgrade now and see increased features. CI 4.0 will cater for those who want a more up-to-date framework and don't want to move to another like laravel.

Anyway, I'm sure you will come up with another reason to argue with me and that's fine, who knows maybe you work on shared servers or struggle to maintain an abandoned application?

CI will get forked and there will be a bleeding edge version. It will happen.