A few days ago I had a curry with four Line Training Captains who had just attended the LTC's conference at STN earlier that day. Pretty good curry it was too. Despite specifically discussing prospects for command upgrade in the next couple of years there was no mention of any 5000 hrs requirement. Funny that. You'd think that maybe something like that would be mentioned to the LTCs at such an event.
Truth is that prospects for command will stagnate somewhat after the remaining aircraft orders have been delivered, and upgrades will come from attrition rather than expansion. However, I think this 5000hr claim is most likely the sort of misinformation that I was ranting about a few posts back.