1.4.0 RC1: --ftversion vs --version freetype version

In RC1 of mpl 1.4.0 the freetype version is now determined correctly using `freetype-config --ftversion` (before `--version` which returned the libtool version `9.22.3` in my case). This however now leads to the case of matplotlib rc1 not installing on my machine as I have freetype 2.3.11.

My question is: Is freetype2 2.4 really required? Due to the setup bug in mpl 1.3.1 I used mpl with freetype 2.3.11 without any problems for several months now. It could be possible though that I didn't use all relevant features which would actually require 2.4 if that's really the case.