Oh great! No, just wait a bit...
What they are trying to tell us is that dropping support for IE 8,9 and 10 will make it possible to develop WP further and this decision will make WP safer as well. That is why it was highest time to drop support for these. But in the meantime they are still hesitating to raise PHP requirements.

Well, it was highest time that not marketing bullshit would make a decision! Outdated browsers mean just minor security risks compared to the security risks of outdated PHP versions. Dropping those browsers will not improve anything on WordPress itself, but will make the life of theme developers easier. That's all. But they again just are not willing to drop PHP 5.2 which really limits even the functionality and code quality of WP besides being a great security risk. Even in 3rd world countries people who can afford blogging are contracted with hosting providers that are able to upgrade even to PHP 7.1 if really needed. Why? Because the servers in 3rd world countries do not contain vacuum tubes as 1st world devs always hypothesize. No camelshepherds operate servers, so there is no point always insisting to PHP 5.2.