Minecraft 1.13+ better?

Personally, I always play 1.8 unless I'm playing either modded which requires 1.12.2+ or 1.7.10 if I'm playing an old mod pack. After 1.8, they completely ruined the PvP aspect which ruined it for a lot of players that didn't play survival or creative servers. I believe they are planning on bringing back the old combat mechanics which is good news as more servers can update to newer versions to integrate better features.