I have to admit this was a real bummer. I know better than to try to upgrade anything that important on a Red Hat type box. There's just no sense in attempting

I have to admit this was a real bummer. I know better than to try to upgrade anything that important on a Red Hat type box. There's just no sense in attempting to diverge from the base system. You either keep it or throw it out and go to the next major release... and I'm not ready for that. That leaves me with one option: leave it in place and then "side load" a new compiler and/or libraries, and then switch to using it for all of my local stuff. Just use docker?? That is literally what docker is for. Get your favourite flavour of debian or whatever, with a modern GCC and fire up that docker container. EDIT: Oh wow, docker is only available in RHEL7 and higher. Damn.