Synchronous updates on ext3?

[Simon Matter]

There is some confusion about synchronous updates on ext3. My rpms do
force synchronous updates on ext2 only because install-configure.html
states:

  LINUX SYSTEMS USING EXT2FS ONLY: Set the user, quota, and partition 
  directories to update synchronously. Failure to do this may lead to
data 
  corruption and/or loss of mail after a system crash. Unfortunately, 
  doing so may result in a serious performance hit. If you are using a 
  newer filesystem than ext2fs on Linux, this step should not be 
  necessary. (Running ext3 in any mode is safe.)

Now it seems not everybody agrees here. I got some questions about this
and I have also checked Gentoo's ebuild script for cyrus-imapd and they
force synchronous updates on both ext2 _and_ ext3. Is it really okay to
use ext3 without synchronous updates or should I change my rpms?

Simon