It’s because you are utterly stuck on thinking the question was closed due to the software being unlicensed, but the actual crux of your original question is this:

> Why—to your knowledge, not speculation—have similar modified versions
> of Windows 7 and Window 8 or 8.1 not been released, at least not
> regularly? Have the people/groups maintaining Windows XP “black
> edition” issued statements about this choice?

What knowledge could one have on this topic that is not speculation? Maybe Microsoft changed things in the way the OS is setup to prevent this? Maybe the prevalence of online applications and web applications has destroyed the desire to develop such a setup? Maybe it’s a combination of both things? Who knows.

But you state this straw many bit of logic:

> the question was first closed as opinion-based (since I asked for the
> potential reasons); that might be a bit strict but I rephrased it to
> make it more strictly informative.
> 
> Still, it remained closed, and a moderator (?) referred me to meta to
> appeal/contest/discuss his/her decision.

I am looking at [your original posting][1]—which was closed—and comparing it to [the latest version][2] and honestly your “rephrasing” doesn’t change the core spirit of the question which is simply one word: Why?

Why is why? None of us know or could explain or understand the why of this type of thing. Why is “New Jack Swing” an unpopular form of music in the 2010s when it was popular in the 1990s? Who knows!

Your insistence from this meta post that the reason it was closed down was due to it being about “unlicensed” software is just a tad tone deaf to the idea that it was not “strict” for this topic to be closed as “opinion-based.” It is very appropriate for this very wide open, opinion-based question to be closed. This site is not a chatroom where questions are just jumping off points to endless, overwrought, opinionated and fact-devoid discussions go on for hours and hours.

If you feel this question does deserve discussion, just head over to [Reddit][3], [MetaFilter][4] or even [Google Groups][5]. I’m sure you can start a discussion in any of those forums. And here is how those discussions *might* loop back to here:

Let’s say one of those discussions mentions some technical issue preventing such images from being created. You could then post a question here stating, “I heard the reason custom disc images for Windows past XP no longer exist is because of this thing. Is this true? Why is this thing such a roadblock to custom images being created?” Even provide a link to your discussion on another site with the pertinent details and then—and in my mind only then—would you have a question worth posting here that would not be shut down.

This site is about tangible issues that can be pinned down by other tangible solutions; not open-ended “Why?” discussions.


  [1]: http://superuser.com/revisions/991161/1
  [2]: http://superuser.com/revisions/991161/3
  [3]: https://www.reddit.com/
  [4]: http://www.metafilter.com/
  [5]: https://groups.google.com