My take is that it could help tie up fragmentation. RISC-V has different profiles defining what instructions come with for different use cases like a general purpose OS, and enshrining them as an ISO standard would give the entire industry a rallying point.
Without these profiles, we are stuck with memorizing a word soup of RV64GCBV_Zicntr_Zihpm_etc all means
fossilised is often desirable or requested in some industries. Developing for the embedded market myself, we often have to stick to C99 to ensure compatibility with whatever ancient compiler a costumer or even chipset vendor may still be running.
I wouldn't say it never had a problem, but the profiles are definitely a reasonable solution.
However even with profiles there are optional extensions and a lot of undefined behaviour (sometimes deliberately, sometimes because the spec is just not especially well written).
The FUD keeps being brought up, but the solution here was in place before the potential issue could manifest.
It started with G, later retroactively named RVA20 (with a minor extra extension that nobody ever skipped implementing), then RVA22 and now RVA23. All application processor implementations out there conform to a profile, and so do the relevant Linux distributions.
Of course, in embedded systems where the vendor controls the full stack, the freedom of micromanaging which extensions to implement as well as the freedom to add custom extensions is actual value.
The original architects of the ISA knew what they were doing.
Without these profiles, we are stuck with memorizing a word soup of RV64GCBV_Zicntr_Zihpm_etc all means