I suppose there's also the question of whether the firmware would need to be flashed to even get 64-bit capabilities from the CPU? So it's conceivable that upgrading the CPU won't achieve much of anything (if it can't run in 64-bit mode)… except maybe a faster rate on the new CPU.
At any rate, it's beginning to look like Lion works on 32-bit CPUs, even if it won't be officially supported (which remains an open question until Apple publishes its minimal hardware requirements list for Lion). For more info, see:
Mac OS X Lion *does* run on Core Duos/Core Solos
Apple seems to have an arbitrary cutoff of the systems it supports with each OS refresh, maybe around 4 years? It's hard to say whether this cutoff is to drive sales of new Macs, or for other reasons, like performance concerns, to reduce their compatibility testing or other support costs… or some combination thereof. I suppose it's hard for Apple to justify the cost of officially supporting older Macs while the number of users upgrading to Lion on those old machines rapidly declines. While original owners will most likely want to upgrade, a lot of older machines get sold to people less concerned about having the latest and greatest. I doubt Apple cares if users jury-rig Lion to run on unsupported systems, so long as it doesn't increase their support costs.
I've seen this before. Thanks to
XpostFacto, i was able to install and run Panther on a Wallstreet PowerBook, even though Apple dropped support for it when Tiger came out, IIRC. But each generation of Mac OS X that i installed on that old Wallstreet performed better than the previous, XpostFacto notwithstanding.
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