Anyone know if a PS3 will support the installation of an SSD and if it'll take advantage of the speed improvement that an SSD would theoretically provide?

The PS3 for the most part does not take advantage of SSDs.

Not positive but I've heard the PS3 will support it fine but won't utilize any of the extra speed. Only remember reading a forum post saying that so take it with a grain of salt.

It will work, but the PS3 uses a very old version of SATA so you won't get much of a speed boost over a mechanical drive.

Good to know. I had upgraded a macbook with an SSD the other day, and the boost is amazing.

Do all versions of the PS3 use an old SATA, or do different revisions use different versions?

As far as I know, (I only own a launch system) all PS3 systems are limited to a maximum 150mb/s transfer rate. Meaning you're new tasty SSD will have the exact same performance as a good 5400 RPM drive. It's not worth the price in my opinion.

I remember seeing a video that showed an ssd does decrease load times, but it wasn't substantial enough to justify the price of an ssd

Hopefully the ps4 will prove differently

For a more detailed analysis, Richard Leadbetter to the rescue:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-can-ssd-upgrades-boost-ps3-performance

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-disc-vs-digital-delivery