For me, it's generally not about choosing to stick with an earlier edition, per se. It's about not taking the time and effort to transition to new editions.
I played a good amount of 3.5e. When 4e came out, I was moving and starting a new job. Then I had a kid. Then another job. Then another kid. Y'know, lots of real life stuff. I still read RPG books and similar related activities. But by the time I got back into staring up a new formal gaming group, 4e was already over. People wanted to play D&D, but none of us had bought the 5e books yet. So I just started a 3.5e game. Because that's what I knew and that's what I had.
When 5.5e came out, my gaming group didn't make an active choice to reject it. We just kept playing with 2014, because we were an established group playing that game. We've starting using 5.5e material when it comes up, but we're generally sticking with 5.0e until something make it worth it to formally switch.