permissions are not set/checked properly ... the dir /var/tmp/emerge-webrsync/ is created without having any permissions forced ... plus if the dir is like root:root 755, running emerge-webrsync as a non-root portage group user does not give any sort of user error ... just lines of "Not yet available." errors when in reality, the problem is the dir is not writable after that, trying to do metadata updates falls all over itself if this shouldnt be run as non-root, then the script should have a check that barfs if you try to run it as non-root :)
This is fixed in git: http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/portage.git;a=commit;h=a343db38d0e4da0126c33d305386b187a6f00205
This is fixed in 2.1.11.11 and 2.2.0_alpha122.
