[snip]

> I understand PMS/paludis wishing to duck the vars existance to make it
> go away, but I don't think it's a tenuable approach- as you yourself
> said above, in trying to do this cleanup you recognized that sometimes
> there was no alternative.

yes - however, there not being an alternative at the moment does not 
automatically mean that FEATURES is a good or the best approach. A more 
clean approach still needs to be proposed. 

[snip]

> 
> Rather then letting the problem persist, I'd rather see folk take a
> look at FEATURES/PMS and identify what needs to be pushed in to take
> care of the cases where there is no alternative to 'hasq some-feature
> $FEATURES' rather then us just collectively sticking our heads in the
> sand.

yes - exactly. so which FEATURES are absolutely required in ebuilds / 
eclasses for which an alternative must be developed?

> 
thanks for your input, BTW