On breaking things

Exactly. The C Standard will never change in this respect, and even if it *did* it would be many decades before everyone could rely on it and a source of portability nightmares until this day.

Language standards for major languages do not change that easily. (Look up the history of the && versus & precedence rules, and why & is wrong. That was back when there were only a few C installations, and they *still* held off changing it.)