Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I tend to think that an overly dogmatic commitment to backwards compatibility does more harm than the benefit produced by supporting a tiny minority of users with five year old hardware. Backward compatibility is the enemy of elegance. Just look at C++ or the x86 instruction set to see examples of that.
I do agree to some extent. On the other hand, I've been using Apple hardware off-and-on again since the MC68030; I already went through this with the 68k->PPC transition, then again with the introduction of the PPC750 series processors, then again with the PPC->Intel transition. At this point, I fully expect that if I were to buy an Intel series Apple system in the next couple of years, shortly afterward Apple would…
On its left, there is a low end Dell PC running an up to date Ubuntu that cost me 350 € two years ago waiting for this day to come.
That said, MacPorts is still alive and kicking, the latest update was a few months ago.