I cannot make assertions on behalf of the SQLite Dev team. I am just reporting the status for a specific version I am working with. We have SQLite integrated into our proprietary build environment with some customizations that require careful merging and testing when switching versions. We also use our own virtual table implementations extensively. So there is considerable work involved in switching SQLite releases, which is why we are currently using 3.24.0 Please do not construe my report as an endorsement to rely on current undocumented behaviour.