Yes, i know that. I never imagined the Home Menu was not included in that list.
So the kernel requirement is 2.52-0 (11.2 iirc) instead of requiring latest?
No, you're misunderstanding this part...
You can use an old application with a new kernel
You can't use a new application with an old kernel (the definition of "old" is in the application's header)
So, you can hack the application to have a lower minimum version number (this was actually very common in the early Gateway days where you had to stay on 4.x even though 6.0+ was around, a few times it didn't work because the application really used new kernel functions, most of the time the version requirement was bullshit and it actually worked)!
Or you can hack the old kernel to report a higher version number. I don't know which way Yellows8 used in his test, but that's how you can use an older kernel than normal
Wait, 8.x menu means you lack theme support (which was the only useful feature we got in years).
Good thing people have the freedom of choice, because an icon for amiibo settings and low-quality JPEG wallpapers VS not having to scroll down to adjust brightness and much faster icon loading, is not something I consider useful
(Downgrading Home also breaks Ninjhax2 and ports, and thus .3dsx; not like I've ever used them in the last year and half)
How did you come across this? Experimenting?
The idea of mixing versions in general? It's something so obvious, once you start learning about the system, that you don't even really think about it anymore: my 8.1 home cia with high version to prevent update nags is almost a year old, the idea of downgrading whitelist/twlfirm is probably older, even partial updates (friends driver) were common when Nintendo first started blocking old versions from online and CFWs did not have the friends version patch yet!