Given the high performance requirement, on a super stable server, being served by a back end EMC, I'd use XFS.

But given a workstation with internal disks, and all the iffy environmental concerns, tied with a much higher level of pain associated with local data loss (as opposed to a well managed data center that someone else deals with), I would not use XFS locally.

So after that point, I'd go for best supported / simplest, ie: ext3, and eat a bit of performance in the process.