- Patch #308138 by mfer, Dave Reid: replace valid_email_address with filter_var and FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL.

- Patch #217170 by maartenvg, rbiffl: boolean PHP settings are best set with php_flag instead of php_value.

#308434 by drewish, dopry, quicksketch, aaron, jhedstrom, and friends: Massive file.inc cleanup aaaaaand... tests! Yay! :D

#308521 by chx: Fix a bunch of stray whitespace. And the trivial patch of the month award goes to... ;)

#308399 by Damien Tournoud: Fix SimpleTest error handler to not spaz out and die when PHP errors are encountered.

#275092 follow-up by chx: Fix admin blocks page to work with secondary themes + test so we don't break it again.

#286035 follow-up by maartenvg: Fix problem with contrib updates not firing unless system update exists.

- Patch #302396 by chx, catch: made some tests more granular so they an be run in parallel or stand-alone.

- Patch #208793 by kbahey, Damien Tournoud: stop hardcoding the HTTP protocol version where possible.