According to this new post on the Inside Open Source blog from APress, Andi Gutmas has made a for a new syntax to be added to the existing array functionality in PHP.
The suggestion involves the use of brackets ([ and ]) to declare the initial array, similar to the way other languages (even Javascript) work.
The current split among the big players in PHP development looks to be about 50/50. The general thought of the opposition is that it is an unnecessary change that will only lead to confusion in the future. Why create two ways of doing the same thing?