I think this project is a hit in the face for every plugin developer who likes to make his plugin available for as many user as possible. I understand the urgency for the need to update to newer php version asap but this lies more in the hands by wordpress.org. It's so easy: wordpress can make the requirements from one day to another to php 5.4. I think this is the most powerful instrument to force user to switch to new hosting environments. This is the way to go, otherwise user would not get security updates for a lot of their plugins any longer. The little developer will not focus on two different plugin branches to do so. It's also much more effective than doing this by thousands of independent developers instead the main company behind wp.