Rating:  - Great information, but poorly written
I own quite a few Wrox Press books, and I have to say that while "Professional PHP4" contains quite a bit of useful information...it might well be one of the most poorly written Wrox books I've ever read in terms of how this information is presented.
Often overly broad (and sometimes bizarre) blanket-statements are used (such as "The use of global variables is widely considered to be poor programming style"...an absurdly broad generalization); concepts are described as "inefficient" without any real substantiated explanation, what appears to be opinions are often presented instead as facts; and new terms are dropped into sentences whole chapters before they are even actually explaned (causing the reader to start wondering if they had missed something earlier).
Long, rambling run-on sentences abound, and sometimes things are described in such a convoluted manner that sometimes even simple concepts end up confusing. The introduction to OOP has got to be one of the most confusing, poorly written explanations of the subject that I've ever seen...thankfully I'm already quite familiar and confortable with OOP, but I could easily imagine someone new to the concept going cross-eyed trying to follow along. The index is also missing many key terms, and the version I have has quite a few glaring typos as well.
On the other hand: while I've heard this book described as too detailed for people new to PHP, anyone who's already comfortable with Perl, CGI and ASP should have no problem following along and quickly getting the hang of things (assuming you can wade through the convoluted text, however).
I would recommend checking this book out closely at a local bookstore to see if you can deal with the way the book is written...if so, you might find the amount of information presented to be valuable.
Rating:  - A great "next step"
Ok, so you have read PHP Programming for the Mentally Challanged, or Learn PHP in 23.5 minutes, or some other similar tome that seems to regurgitate itself every week or two...
Now you are thinking, "What should I do to take the next step?"
Answer: Read this book.
While this book has its share of typos, errors and other "burps" it is quite well presented, and if you take the time to use it, and truely study it, the errors will be easily fixed.
I have been working with PHP for all too long now, and I have given this book to a number of collegues to get them up to speed, and I have not been disappointed yet.
Rating: - Great Buy
I recommend this book to every serious PHP programmer - Professional,Beginner or Intermediate.The Information presented in it will never fade!!
Rating:  - Overrated
I bought this book due to the great feedback that had been posted at the time of my purchase. I regret to inform the community that this book will waste your time and money. Many of the descriptions are directly from the PHP website (example... in_array) and do nothing to expand on its usage.
If someone finds a PHP book equivalent to O'Reilly's "Programming Perl" please let me know. That is the best book I've read for any language... I just wish there was something like it in PHP.
Beginnners and advanced developers should avoid this book unless you have a piece of furniture in the house that is REALLY uneven.
Rating: - Skip it!
Incomplete information, poorly organized. Dont' waste your time or your money. Much of the text directly from PHP Web site.
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