The 0.51 version of gaim that I just emerge'd lacks the main, non-applet, binary. I'm confused by this and am unsure as to whether or not this is a real bug.
This seems to be caused by retardation in gaim's configure script... If configure is called with --enable-panel then you end up with just gaim_applet. If you disable gnome support you get a standalone binary. I havn't looked at the makefiles enough to know if we can hack them to build both or if we have to compile gaim twice if gnome support is enabled.
gaim-0.51-r1 was checked into CVS which hopefully fixes this. The standalone binary and gaim_applet should both be built when gnome support is enabled. Please let me know if you find any issues with the new build.