Trying LiteSpeed, some questions, issues

[dotpro]

Hi,

I decided to install and trial version on my server to see if it helps with performance. Here are server details and what I've done so far:

Server
CPU: Dual Processor Quad Core Xeon 5520 - 2.26GHz (Nehalem) - 2 x 8MB cache w/HT
Memory: 12GB ram
hard drive type/configuration: 4x 147GB SAS 15k in RAID-10, Adaptec 5405 Card
Linux: CentOS 5.4 64bit
Webserver: Apache/2.2.14 (now its LiteSpeed 4.1)
PHP version: PHP 5.2.9
MySQL version: 5.0.85-community

Applications in use
Wordpress, vBulletin and PhotoPost

Early last year, I started using CDN along with W3 Total Cache... all the compression and gzipped crap looks good when you see the sourcecode and on pagespeed but it didn't help. Maybe, it did help a little but over all, the wordpress home page still loads slow and under Google Webmaster > site performance > site still takes 5-7 seconds to load...

The vBulletin side wasn't really a concern before the move as it was running fine with xcache+vbSEO.

I installed LiteSpeed using the cpanel/whm plugin last week and disabled xCache since in php.ini file. vBulletin performance is extremely good, everything is fast for 4 or 5 vBulletin forums on same server. The wordpress performance is bit of a worry for me. The internal (wp) pages load okay but homepage/index page takes sometime (same as before). I do not see any improvement in that even with W3 Total Cache. I have the cache settings to Disk:enhanced as xCache was disabled.

I am not seeing any improvement either on google webmaster tools site load times and other tools around the net for homepage AFTER installing LiteSpeed... one site moved from 5-6 seconds to 18 seconds!!!!!

I also tried basic cache settings for LS and It doesn't seem to work (posted in that thread here).

I am not sure what I'm missing with the configuration?

Do I need to change settings in httpd.conf or php.ini for optimal performance?

Do I need to manually create virtual hosts in LS as I don't see them populated when looking under Virtual Hosts link in LS?

Should "out of the box" settings work, what can be changed safely without breaking stuff?

Is there a "template" for using LS with wordpress and/or Wordpress+cache plugins?

Hope to get some feedback and answers!

I am not linux admin type of guy by profession (microsoft/cisco/vmware is my area) but I can walk around it, do what I can learn and learn what I can do.

Thanks