Yeah, I don't think that Jon was putting down debs, just making a comment about one of the niceties of gentoo's ebubilds.
From speaking with Roberto, I think that the portage and apt-get are more or less functionally equivalent but just take different approaches. Having both an gentoo package and a debian package that would allow for OACS install, or at least OACS component installs, would both truly rock.
talli