For anyone who is curious or finds this thread through searching, the difference is the cpanel version. Tommy is running the latest version of cpanel and Ricky is running a much older version. In the older versions of cpanel the optimize website button in cpanel enabled .htaccess mod_deflate compression on all static files, and also enabled zlib compression for php too. In the newer versions of cpanel like Johnny and Tommy have and Ricky will one day be upgraded to the optimze website button in cpanel only enables the compression on the static files. In order to enable php compression an admin has to do it. That's why there's the note in cpanel about contacting your system admin.
I'm not sure why they made this change. It actually seems better to me in the older versions of cpanel.