This may be more of a rant than anything, but can someone tell me if I am doing something wrong with EPA or does it really require the client and NetScaler version to match exactly? Why can't the NetScaler version be newer, within some reasonable version?

You can have different version but also ensure update version is not checked on NetScaler configuration

Did not see the options that control this. Took some time to dig it up, but now it makes sense. I appreciate the quick response.

Here https://docs.netscaler.com/en-us/netscaler-gateway/citrix-gateway-clients/upgrade-windows-clients-on-netscaler-gateway.html