Yeah, that's forwards compatibility not backwards compatibility.
In many cases, this situation is already here. My laptop came with Windows 8 and if I ran Windows 7 on it, it would work, but many of the newer power management and performance features wouldn't work.
Interestingly, I've been a hardcore Dell fan for many years with many tens of thousands of dollars in purchases - home and work.
I bought an outlet Latitude two weeks ago. It came with Win 8 which is awful. It would not run Win 7, no matter how many tricks I tried (numerous driver issues).
I do not want Win 10. The Dell is being returned, and I am buying my first ever personal MacBook (I'm done with Linux on the laptop, too - too busy these days to deal with the typical issues that have plagued Linux for 15 years now).
I'm done with Microsoft and any company that wants to tie themselves to them: Dell, HP, Lenovo, Intel, etc.
Better is of course subjective, and I might suggest a hint of rose-tinted glasses there.
I've been using Windows professionally since Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and whilst sure I miss some of the simplicity and cleanness of older versions, every time I actually have to use one of the old versions I'm constantly bumping into annoyances and missing features that I've gotten used to with Windows 10
One small but important, to me, example ie being able to resize command shell windows by dragging them! and easy copy/paste !
I'm running Windows 10 now (upgraded just before the deadline) and I quite like it. It only takes a bit of time to disable enough to make it look/act like a better version of Windows 7.
In many cases, this situation is already here. My laptop came with Windows 8 and if I ran Windows 7 on it, it would work, but many of the newer power management and performance features wouldn't work.