Ok, fair enough, but it puzzles me that the effort shall be put into making a multitude of client verions working flawlessly with a multitude of server versions instead of holding server (and client) versions the same.
Yes, I know, but the method I described is a rather trivial way to make things work in this situation.
My own deduction is that using latest version clients is probably better than using same version clients.
Keep in mind that there are situations where users of clients programs aren't in control of server bits, so this answer would be helpful for them as well.