4.4 would work only if you a have a Client from that time frame... I don't understand why anyone would want to do that though. The Emulator of today is vastly superior to the older versions. It took me a very long time to set up a server when we were using 4.4 and older. The new ones can be setup very quickly and easily as long as your client version is right.
The biggest problem people have is when they leave and then return. It is very important to stay up to date with news and to allways keep your everquest client up to but not beyond what the emulator will run.
I personaly keep 3 versions of EQ on my machine.
1. Is patched to live and I currently give sony money every month for 2 all access passes.
2. Is kept current with what ever emulator I am using.
3 Is used when the EQEmu team says that we can patch to live, I try it and if it works this one becomes number 2
Coming and going is very hard to pull off around here as I just found out myself. I was lucky and had a proper version of Everquest because of my above plan... I had the last 3 versions of EQ on my pc and found theat one of them was right when I returned