General issues with the ports system

[Konstantin 'Kosta' Welke]

Hello!

I have some questions about the FreeBSD ports system. I did not find
any further "real" documentation other than the FreeBSD handbook and
the porters guide, so I guess I'll just ask you guys.

a) Is it possible to "downgrade" ports? Theoretically, it should be
possible given that the ports dir is a cvs tree. Is there any non-
painful way?

b) Is it possible to use & install ports without having a ports tree?
I know that it's not, but other than the directory for the single port
(multimedia/mplayer for example) and the distfile directory, is there
anything more that is needed by it? Could one, with some not too major
changes, get rid of the big big ports tree?

c) What issues do you have with the FreeBSD ports system? What features
are you missing?

Don't get me wrong, this isn't really a complaint. I love the way it is
unbelievably easy to compile&install software on FreeBSD. These things
are just what I thought could be improved, maybe. And before I'm trying
it on my own (maybe... *g*), I guess it couldn't hurt to ask.

cya,
Kosta