Has USE="-*" set by default, this renders default use flag settings from the profile useless. USE_STAGE23 in the profile should become a catalyst spec, since catalyst is the only tool using the variable. This move would allow per stage use flag configurations, rather than per set of stages.
this is not necessarily a bad thing. It forces the builder (who is more often than not a release dev) to conform all of their release media to a specific set of guidelines (in the profile). It may be inflexible, but the QA that it allows for outweighs the flexibility issues.
The guy I reported this bug for did not knew there was an example file. I've opened a new bug about adding a single line comment that informs the more experienced users of the availability of a full size make.conf.example
