Hello.
All very valid points and we looked at updating to the latest Java version as part of the last release cycle but there were issues that we couldn’t resolve in time. Java 8 is supported and still widely used (and the latest version is also accepted by Apple’s notarization program – that was one of the pain points in 4.1.x). The problems with Java 11 (which is what we’d like to switch to) are mostly around the target platform and compatibilities of some of the underlying libraries KNIME uses, e.g. Eclipse BIRT.
Working on it …
– Bernd