I have searched high and low but I don't see a clear way to do this. I simply want all the YAML files in the config folder to be replaced with PHP files. Where can I find this? Or is there documentation on it?
I don't believe anyone has made a distribution like this. The Standard Edition uses a mix of YAML, annotations, and XML (mostly YAML). YAML is incredibly easy and intuitive, though. I don't think you'll have a problem using it for the standard configs. You can still use PHP for any bundles you create on your own. Also, most bundles use YAML as their default, so it would probably be faster to just use those rather than convert their examples to PHP.