Okay, so it turns out we can't remove firefox 1.5* until gnome-2.14 gets punted. Which it's impossible right now since in the following profiles >gnome-2.14 doesn't work: /usr/portage/profiles/selinux/alpha/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/no-nptl/2.4/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/alpha/no-nptl/2.4/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/sparc/sparc32/2006.0/2.4/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/sparc/sparc32/2006.1/2.4/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/sparc/sparc64/2006.0/2.4/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/sparc/sparc64/2006.1/2.4/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 /usr/portage/profiles/hardened/x86/package.mask:>=www-client/epiphany-2.16.0 So, 1.5 series are going to be masked globally but unmasked in the profiles mentioned avobe. This only affects www-client/mozilla-firefox. -bin is going to be removed since nothing depends on it.
For the record, gnome 2.14 will be punted after 2.18 goes stable; it is our policy to only have 2 stable versions of gnome in the tree. Those profiles will have to update to at least 2.16 or not have any gnome support at all, at that time.