A huge hesitation on the usage of CSS3 is with older browsers such as IE7-IE8 (and sometimes IE9). How about adding CSS3PIE rules in the list? They've got a good list of supported CSS3 features, although sometimes you'll have to put in a somewhat "vendor" specific rule to implement them.
background-color: #444444;
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#444444), to(#444444));
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #444444, #444444);
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #444444, #444444);
background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #444444, #444444);
background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #444444, #444444);
background-image: linear-gradient(top, #444444, #444444);
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#444444', EndColorStr='#999999'); /* IE6–IE9 */
-pie-background: linear-gradient(top, #444444, #444444);
The -pie- prefixes are ignored by browsers and can easily be turned on for lower version IEs with a conditional js script. But additional Javascript would need to be placed to turn on CSS3PIE, but the mere inclusion of the -pie- prefix on the some of the items would help a lot.