after ugrading to portage-2.0.11, portage did something weird: emerge --update world emerged rp-pppoe-3.3 even if rp-pppoe-3.4 was previously installed. furthermore, emerge --pretend clean will show rp-pppoe-3.3 as protected and rp-pppoe-3.4 as ready to be removed.
nothing weird about it, please check /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask
oops. sorry for false alarm. thank you.