Well on websites and on the PS3 box itself it says no but when sony slashed the cost of the ps3 the 40gb onwards was not region locked to save money so yes you can play region 1,3,4 games on region 2...
When the PS3 was released they tried to make it play PS2 games and received complaints because it was not perfect. They stopped making the models that could and only PS3 models with the 4 USB ports...
Yes ALL Ps3 have capability to play any ps3 game. But the only thing that is region resitricted is downloadable content. (i.e. If you buy a ps3 japaneze game you can only download DLC with a japaneze...
An 80GB can only play PS1 games; however, a 60GB can play both PS1 and PS2. The Sony ads for all the current Production models have the following information on playing other PlayStation games listed...