Great job as always on the update!
Regarding Pern, I had a quick idea, which may or may not be feasible, but thought of sharing.
Maybe we could host another server with just Pern and add compatibility to join from 1.18.x+ clients, but the server itself is on 1.17? We could give an IP like pern.sentinelcraft.net or something.
Just a thought on the matter.