distributions started out with solving the problem that most developers at that time didn't even bother to build ready to run packages. they couldn't, because there were to many different architectures that not everyone had access to. so developers had to rely on users to build the applications for themselves. distributions then organized around that to make this easier for users. that's how the port system in BSD came about. linux distributions went a step further and built distributable binaries.

the problem was to not predict that developers would want more control over the build of their applications, which, thanks to architectures consolidating, became easier because now a single binary will reach the majority of your userbase. and the need to support multiple versions of the same library or app in the package manager. that support should have been there from the start, and now its difficult to fix that.

so it's unfair to say distros are wrong. yes, it's not an ideal design, but this is more of an accident of history, some lack of foresight, and the desire to keep things simple by having only the newest version of each package.

there is a conflict between the complexity of supporting multiple package versions vs the complexity of getting applications to work with the specific library versions the distro supports. when distros started out it looked like the latter would be better for everyone. distributions tended to have the latest versions of libraries and fixing apps to work with those benefited the apps in most cases.