> The ASP->PHP conversion was extremely low-hanging fruit (the conversion involved almost no logic).

This is where I'm curious that they didn't just start writing PHP from that point forward. It was already a cross-platform language. And, if I recall, had a lot of hype and was gaining traction fast I'm the late 90's and early 2000's.

Certainly hindsight is 20-20, but I remember a lot of folks betting big on PHP at the time.