As I understand it, in Apple’s case 32-bit support was also negatively impacting development of Cocoa/AppKit due to some Objective-C technicalities.
I think probably the right way to handle 32-bit compat is well-integrated virtualization ala Classic Mode from OS X’s early days. When the user tries to run a 32-bit binary, boot up a minimal old copy of the host OS and run it there. It’s not as nice as running it directly, but I think that’s fine; it gently pushes devs to bring their antiquated software into the modern era while allowing users to continue to run it and keeps OS development unshackled from the past.
I think probably the right way to handle 32-bit compat is well-integrated virtualization ala Classic Mode from OS X’s early days. When the user tries to run a 32-bit binary, boot up a minimal old copy of the host OS and run it there. It’s not as nice as running it directly, but I think that’s fine; it gently pushes devs to bring their antiquated software into the modern era while allowing users to continue to run it and keeps OS development unshackled from the past.