Can anyone think of a reason that /usr/bin shouldn't be added to the open_basedir entry for all customers? Without it, no one can use binaries in that directory from their PHP scripts (such as jpegtran which is used by a number of PHP image gallery applications). Since you can access /usr/bin via perl/cgi, it seems it's a no brainer to add it to the open_basedir for PHP as well.

Love to hear some thoughts.