I should point out that it'll only take another 22 months (January 2026) before 2.2 breaks the "longest time a major SRB2 version was relevant" record, currently held by the Final Demo era (73 months (6 years, 1 month)). 2.1 currently takes silver as that was relevant for about... 69 months (5 years, 9 months). There is nothing funny here, that's actually how long 2.1 roughly lasted.
As long as the record isn't broken, we probably won't have to wait much longer.