FWIW, AlmaLinux went through a beta cycle for their 8.4 update, based on the pre-release RHEL8.4 packages… So they had a leg up – when RHEL8.4 was actually released, they’d worked through most issues already and they just needed to kick their machines and reroll.
Oracle Linux 8.4 was rolled out seemingly “as the packages were rebuilt”… Oracle’s packages appeared in their repo first, but it was incomplete – with bunches of packages from the secondary/extra streams/repos (HA, etc.) not available from 8.4 initially. This made me have to do a bunch of “–nobest” partial updates over at least three days. Finally my Oracle-based test VM updated cleanly today.
AlmaLinux 8.4 may have dropped ~1 day after Oracle, but it was a clean update from the start.
With RockyLinux, I think it’s a case of unfortunate timings – it’s really tough to be in the middle of initial rollout when the next release drops. Do you finish what’s in progress, or simply jump forward to rebase the initial release on 8.4? Some will prefer one approach, others the other…
To me, it would make some sense to finish the 8.3 release (with proviso that 8.4 is coming ASAP…), then turn right around and work through the process to roll out the 8.4 release. It might be more work, and no rest, but it does establish the initial baseline, fulfills promises, and then exercises the new-release process(es) sooner rather than having to wait 6-8 months for the next one.
As much as I would like to see Rocky 8.4, I can wait a bit to allow the processes to solidify now rather than later.
(I haven’t seen a thing on any CentOS prospect for 8.4… with how slowly package updates have been dropping from CentOS8, I don’t know that I would expect anything anytime soon.)