[FLOW3-general] PHP Min requirements

[Jacob Floyd]

Any plans on when we'll be raising the minimum requirements for PHP?

http://forge.typo3.org/issues/36050 Suggests PHP 5.3.4 or 5.3.6

People at work want to stick with the CentOS RPMs, but they are only at 
5.3.3.
What are the pros/cons of sticking with 5.3.3 or compiling a later version? 
How do the different versions affect FLOW3? Are they significantly faster?
If you were trying to convince a sys admin to update (ie compile from 
source) PHP for use by TYPO3/FLOW3, what would you say?

What about 5.4 - How well does FLOW3 work with 5.4? Are there any 
benefits/problems using this version?

Thanks for your help!
Jacob Floyd