I won't go into detail about what motherboard or CPU I'm using, suffice to say they're not older than a year or two as far as make and model are concerned, so I'm wondering if P95 is still the best tool to test the stability of overclock settings. I mean, running SETI@home or ProgressQuest used to be all-consuming of CPU power at one point, but not so much anymore (do PQ servers still exist?). Is the P95 program still being optimized at regular intervals for new hardware, "torture test" included?

Yes, just make sure to run the same number of instances as your CPU has cores. An overnight Prime95 run is considered a good test for an OC, or 24 hours if time permits. For a quick test then Intel Burn Test is good if you set it to cover as much of your free RAM as possible and for about 7 cycles.

Intel Burn Test will find problems quicker, so you are well served by running it for 2 hours followed by 24 hours of Prime 95. If you are in a hurry, divide those by 2 or 3 :)

It also works on AMD CPUs. OCCT claims to be the same test, but without the Intel branding. The choice is your preference; there's no difference in merit between the two.

(Internally, Intel Burn Test and OCCT are Linpack. Intel uses IBT because it gives quick "ship/scrap" decisions.)

I'll have to use Intel Burn Test, because P95 doesn't seem to like Bulldozers very much.