A specific version of a package can be selected for installation by
following the package name with an equals (=) and the version of the package to select. This will cause that version to be located and selected for install. Alternatively, a specific distribution can be selected by following the package name with a slash (/) and the version of the distribution or the Archive name (i.e. stable, testing, unstable).
source: http://linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get
So this is saying to me you don't need the PPA to install the latest version but can instead do:
<package>=<version>
If that is so we don't need to add PPAs to our systems. IN other words PPAs are just a way to make it so that we are always running the latest version of the package regardless of if it works whereas we choose what we want to run with:
<package>=<version>
That is very Linuxy of them!