A quote: In the case of emake, the common || die "something went wrong" idiom is used — this is to ensure that if for some reason an error occurs, Portage will stop rather than trying to continue with the install. Note that econf does not need the || die idiom, as it dies by itself if something failed. I don't think we need "|| die" with emake anymore?
This appears to have been fixed by someone somewhere. Thank you, Mr. Someone. Also, mjo, thank you very much for filing this bug. :)