I don't like Gentoo very much. I like the FreeBSD ports idea, but most other things about Gentoo are not to my liking.

The startup scripts in Gentoo are a mess. They have introduced a layer of programs between the sysadmin and the actual startup scripts. You are supposed to call these programs when you want to change, for example, what programs are started at boot time. This is an extra layer of crap to learn, and since it is completely Gentoo-specific I can't be bothered.

Furthermore there are programs that are part of the boot process that don't have man pages. It is bad to have new mechanisms, but system commands without man pages is simply unacceptable.

Back to the topic of creating extra layers of crap between the sysadmin and the system: This is not a good idea. Extra layers of crap create a situation where the sysadmin doesn't know what's happening under the hood. And when things under the hood don't work as planned, the sysadmin finds himself confused and helpless. Good system administrators want to know what's going on in their system. In my opinion, a well-designed system aims to genuinely reduce the complexity of the system, not hide the complexity behind a for-dummies interface which gives people a false sense of control. I have seen that false sense of control go out the window when things don't work as distro people planned. When the cute interface doesn't "just work" then you have to go behind/under the cute interface to actually fix things yourself. And that is when one develops an appreciation for real simplicity, not pseudo-simplicity.