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Sleep needs do change from person to person. One individual may need eight hours of sleep to be completely rested, while other people only need six or less.
I know short-term sleep deprevation can cause personality and mood shifts....usually people are more short-tempered and frustratable. They lose concentration easier and can be a driving hazard if they're prone to dozing off. Physical coordination can also be lost. Since we're not really sure about the true need for sleep (as far as I'm aware anyway) we have no idea what the real long term effects are (20+ years down the road). The body itself only needs a few hours of rest and non-movement to recover from daily activity. Sleep itself only appears to be necessary for the mind and brain. The brain does need regular periods of REM sleep (because if you don't get it you go crazy and die), but the reasons for that are still unknown. The only important thing that I know of is that sleep debt doesn't really go away except if you get all the recovered sleep hours that your body has been needing and not getting. Thus, depriving yourself of sleep that your body actually needs can lower your general performance and quality of life over time, and you may not even know it.
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