This seems more and more to be the reality we are moving towards. Been dabbling with FreeBSD lately and it just works. Also, ports are updated or new submitted quite often making it feel less out of date.

That's not a decision you make and then train staff + switch in a short time. At least not beyond trivial deployments. People used CentOS so they don't have to deal with this and they will have other less-extreme options before CentOS EOL.