Hi @ewblen. Here is a bit more technical reading for you.
You are talking here about Rollback protection or as I prefer to call it anti-rollback and it is all part of Verified Boot and Android Verified Boot.
These official articles make it all sound quite benign, but Android provide the framework, manufactures exploit it to build in obsolescence.
A fun thing to note is that the rules change between Android 8, 9, 10, and an even more sealed system is promised for 11!
Edit. Re-reading you OP, I am talking theory, is there a practical issue still to fix?