[dev] odd Composing IMP issue in git

[Rick Romero]

So, I really don't think this is an IMP issue, I think it's a PHP issue - but I need help to determine where the source of the problem is.

I have two web servers, almost identical.   PHP 5.3.6 - all the same modules loaded.
git install is replicated from the working install to the 2nd web server via rsync.   git lives under data/horde_git - the web root for horde is data/horde.  rsync replicates data/

When I compose on one of them, and only in IMP 5 (previous Horde install works fine), I get a completely empty email.  It seems an array is passed to the DATA command, instead of the contents of the array (?) - because the actual content of the email (after the SMTP generated headers) is always just:
Resource ID #XX

I've recompiled PHP and the extensions (FreeBSD 7.2), I don't see any errors being thrown, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the problem is.
It occurs whether or not I compose with HTML, Plain text, or from Traditional or Dynamic mode.

Any pointers where to look - or where to maybe recompile again?