Bit of a shame to be using short open tags in PHP, ideally you shouldn't especially as it requires PHP5+

That's badly worded - especially as PeoplePods requires PHP5 .

PHP SHORT OPEN TAG
This directive determines whether or not PHP will recognize code between tags as PHP source which should be processed as such. It's been recommended for several years that you not use the short tag "short cut" and instead to use the full tag combination. With the wide spread use of XML and use of these tags by other languages, the server can become easily confused and end up parsing the wrong code in the wrong context. But because this short cut has been a feature for such a long time, it's currently still supported for backwards compatibility, but we recommend you don't use them.
Default Value: On
Development Value: Off
Production Value: Off
http://php.net/short-open-tag

Hey Chris, I read that same thing a while ago, but it was too late to go back and change the ten zillion places that it exists in PeoplePods. As the code progresses, I will make efforts to go back and change the tags to the full tag.