Actually with regards to flash devices and drives the statement is that there is a minimum level of firmware which is on the HCL, anything higher is supported as far as I know. I will ask the engineering team to bake this logic in to the health check HCL team.

EDIT: Apparently this does not apply to the Intel P3700 devices, what is listed on the HCL is a hard requirement, so please do not use a higher version!