For decades I've been deploying Apache by compiling its source, including all of the modules.

Some time last year I realized this is a huge time suck with not as much benefit as it had had in the past. Previously I could argue that I understood my system better, had more control, and even poked at some optimizations.

Recently, keeping everything in sync and up-to-date has proven harder.  I have become more concerned that my compiled-from-source modules were separating from the provided packages, and may even be introducing risk in its divergence.

It's a leap of faith that the package maintainers are doing it right, but in the meantime, I'm more up-to-date, and the future upgrades should be more convenient.

Now...to move it all to the high-horsepower server!