Glad to hear it ... but sad that can't move forward cause PHP 7 on CentOS 7 and Moodle 33 is faster ... don't need any base line matrix from the past .. .one can to see it.
Don't know your hosting situation, but will share what was done with RackSpace boxen that had to move upwards OS wise ... CentOS 5 reaching end of life.
Backed up the site ... full sql dump, full tar ball of data and moodle code.
Spun up a new instance of CentOS minimal (this one 6 but have now done a CentOS 7 now also), fresh install of erverything. At first, with PHP, lower version but had an upgrade path. One site, due to size, did have to have an 'attached drive' - really another CentOS X with large space ... now being used to mount.
Once new spun up box ready, xfer it all, test ... change to DNS. Leaving the old site up for a week just in case something missing.
Much has to do with where one host and how it's hosted. Rackspace is expensive but one does get total complete access with no cPanel user jail, etc..
Those boxen don't have to be total/100% command line ... have you ever used/seen an open sourced 'cPanel' called Webmin?
'spirit of sharing', Ken