Apple released a formal support policy a couple of months back: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/apple-clarifies-security-update-policy-only-the-latest-oses-...
While they may backport a subset of the patches, they are leaving some issues unpatched, which is a major issue (especially for commercial work - running OS's with known vulnerabilities, without compensating controls, is...well...bad to use a technical term).
I expect that as intel fades into the distance, patches for older versions on it disappear faster than for the M1's. A year is about as long as folks should count on to be safe (and of course, if they don't give us a 'next version is M1 only' then it may be only a few months from WWDC to October for when intel machines lose full support. And of course, High Sierra hasn't been supported in quite a while. Call it an 'apple tax' to keep on supported OS/Hardware platform (note that OpenCore isn't really a legitimate option, especially for commercial use).
You'll need to contact VMWare support to downgrade that far (they portal doesn't do more than one).
