behaviour changes upgrading from nginx .6.x to .7.x

[Michael McCallister]

Greetings,

First, thanks for nginx - very cool web server.  Next, upon upgrading 
from 0.6.36 to 0.7.61 I noticed some changes in behaviour which prompted 
me to downgrade back to 0.6.36 until I could further understand the 
changes between .6.x and .7.x.  More specifically, here is where things 
worked differently:

Given this rewrite rule:  rewrite ^/[Aa]rticles/?(.*) /search.php?q=$1;

This URL: /Articles/highway+diesel+vehicles

Would generate the following $_GET in php (5.2.8 using fpm) and nginx 
(0.6.36):

array (
  'q' => 'highway diesel vehicles',
)

Whereas the same exact URL would generate the following $_GET in php 
(5.2.8 using fpm - no changes to php) and nginx (0.7.61 - nginx is the 
only thing that changed):

array (
  'q' => 'highway+diesel+vehicles',
)

I view the behaviour under nginx 0.6.36 as correct while the behaviour 
under 0.7.61 does not result in the expected value.  Obviously it is 
trivial to workaround this issue, but this leads up to my main concern - 
what else behaves differently?  I tried to find documentation outlining 
upgrade considerations while migrating from .6.x to .7.x but could not 
find any - my apologies if I missed them and/or am asking a question 
already addressed previously on the list.

So I guess I really have two questions considering the above:

1) Is the above behaviour in .7.x expected?
2) Is there a list of things to watch out for when changing from .6.x to 
.7.x?

Any help is greatly appreciated and thanks again for nginx.

Michael