I never used PHP so correct me if I'm missing something here, but "you need to use a framework to build good applications in PHP" (which kinda implies that it is hard/impossible otherwise) doesn't sound like an argument in favor of the language.
Much faster without unnecessary processing that I never use, no weird rules on routing but it's all linked to file name, so it's easier to figure where to look and no ORM but plain SQL that is easier to optimize and know what's going on and it has multi site capability and they're all hosted under different sub domains to keep clear separations of what code is shared and what isn't and lastly logging is far better as they're grouped together by access and not just display logs of different accesses all mixed up which is useless.
If you know what you're doing, frameworks drag you around for no good reason. The only reason I'd use one is if a team wants common knowledge to develop it but otherwise I never want one.
And you mention "any application"? Why would any application not be built without using a framework? Unless you mean libraries that link to your app and not something you base your whole app on.
Why was all this time spent on PHP instead of doing anything else? I don't have a clue.