There are a few things to consider when deciding what kernel revision you should be using in a production environment.
Officially, Linux has two major threads of development. The stable releases have an even number as its minor number. The Linux 2.2 and 2.4 kernels are examples of stable releases. These are considered by Linus to be stable enough for production use. Few known bugs or issues exist with these kernels.
The other release is the development releases. These have experimental drivers or changes to them, and can cause crashes if used in production environments. However, these releases will be more likely to support newer hardware.
Most Linux distributions will often make a compromise between stability and performance by creating their own version of the kernel and source code. These kernels start with a base of a stable kernel, then add in some newer drivers. The resulting kernel is then tested to make sure it is stable, then released.
As a generalization, stable kernels are good for production use, while development kernels may have better performance. For your use, you should monitor the changes in the two sets of kernels and see if there are any performance increases that will make your system faster, then test that against a known stable kernel. You can then make a determination of stability of the system versus performance.