It is strange that Converter 5 gives an error. The logs may say more about that. However there are some details. The "Unable to obtain hardware information..." is an error that come from the agent, i.e. it must have been deployed first. Notice that each converter server version comes with its own agent version. So if you have already deployed another agent (e.g. 4.3), remove it before deploying 5.5.
If you do get this error with agent 5.5. deployed, please upload the agent log file for examination. It can be located on the source machine in %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\logs". (click on "Use advanced editor" to attach files in the post).
As for the SSL - the tag comment you quote is about securing the communication between converter client and server. Cloning performance is affected by (not) applying SSL to the data transfer which is controlled by the other tag I have mentioned before.
Honestly, I don't remember for sure whether data transfer can be encrypted in 4.3 (I think it can''t) but you can try tweaking the tag and check whether there is any difference. Don't forget to restart converter worker service after changing the config file.
Regards,
Plamen