Its a fork of Core with minor auditable open source changes.
Discussion
Except changes aren't peer reviewed, so if auditing is occurring, it's not being done transparently.
and also... minor? last I looked there were hundreds of non-peer reviewed patches on top unless that changed.
Is just better to run an older version of core say V22.0.0?
Only if you enjoy running unpatched software vulnerabilities.
This does nothing for me if the peers reviewing Core decide to make bitcoin a decentralized database for storing shitcoin spam instead of a decentralized monetary protocol. All the peer review in the world means nothing if there are irreconcilable differences in the direction Core wants to take Bitcoin.