Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: PenguinFor reference: the Mint team updated their Xfce flavor (from 4.16 to 4.18) in Mint 21.2.

Uhm... I have Mint 21.3 XFCE currently. It ships with Xfce 4.16. The update actually happened with Mint 22.0. We likely won't see Xfce 4.20 until Mint 23 comes out.

As @AsciiWolf pointed out, it has to do with the base version of Ubuntu they rely on. The only exception is Cinnamon, which the Mint Team manages themselves.

Well, I was eagerly waiting for the (back then) new Xfce clock plugin, which was delivered in Mint 21.2 with Xfce 4.18, and I remember it well. Just to be sure I'm not crazy, I did some research, and you can read more about the Mint 21.2 release here:

https://9to5linux.com/linux-mint-21-2-victoria-is-slated-for-release-on-june-2023-heres-what-to-expect [External Link]

In the article it says:

"Most notably here, the Xfce edition will be based on the latest Xfce 4.18 desktop environment."