The great thing about minecraft is being able to choose which version to play on. maybe you like 1.20 where they added Camels and bamboo wood, or maybe you prefer 1.19 where servers had more independence. Or maybe you are old school and prefer your poppies being called roses and your spiders not being able to jump two blocks high.
I liked the Caves and Cliffs part 1 update. It greatly improved the cave and terrain generation. I liked the new biomes they added. The axolotls was the cherry on top.
I play the newest version that all of my mods support, which is currently 1.19.2.
I feel like the game(java at least) has only gotten better.
i like 1.12.2 because of its mod support, but my favorite for playing vanilla is beta 1.7.3; i prefer its gameplay and worldgen over the newer versions
I wasn’t brought in by any of the changes in 1.19, but I love the changes to ore drops in 1.17 and the new terrain generation of 1.18. So I’ve been sticking with 1.18 until the mods I use work in 1.20.
My personal favourite is beta 1.7.3, Funnily enough, not even a version I played until recently, but its simplistic charm and vibe got me very into it. Plus, the Aether mod is still great to this day.