This should be changed. The reason it's done so in the upstream sources is probably to have easier time distributing pre-compiled binaries. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce:
use nedit-5.5 this is no longer statically linked.
I use nedit-5.5: # equery list nedit [ Searching for package 'nedit' in all categories among: ] * installed packages [I--] [ ] app-editors/nedit-5.5 (0) # ldd /usr/bin/nedit libXp.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libXp.so.6 (0x0000002a9566c000) libXpm.so.4 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libXpm.so.4 (0x0000002a95774000) libXext.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libXext.so.6 (0x0000002a95885000) libXt.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libXt.so.6 (0x0000002a95995000) libSM.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libSM.so.6 (0x0000002a95af5000) libICE.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libICE.so.6 (0x0000002a95c00000) libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib64/libX11.so.6 (0x0000002a95d19000) libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x0000002a95ef5000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x0000002a9607c000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x0000002a962a2000) /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x0000002a95556000) Probably ebuild was changed lately without incrementing -r*?
yes, try to remerge it