So, they're giving it the Skyrim treatment. I think it's received about 10 version updates since AE launched like 2 years ago. I ended up downloading a modlist that was 1.5.97 (the original version of Skyrim SE) and ended up sticking with it since it's future proofed.
They definitely are, I have been using 1.6 for a while, it's just a pain in the ass to keep updating SKSE mods or those mods that support 1.6 but only older versions because the authors don't make mods anymore.