stable tree

Howdy,
	So I just installed gentoo on an HP zx2000 and i'm quite pleased,
but I can't help but notice that there are numerous packages that have
been masked but that build without problem and run just the same.  What
would it take to get packages marked stable.  Barring that, is there a way
to make portage respect changes made to ebuilds locally?  For instance, I
cracked open app-editor/joe/joe-3.0-r1.ebuild and added "ia64" to the
KEYWORDS, is there a way to stop portage from overwritting these changes
every time I sync?  I appologize if this has been covered previously, I
was unable to find mention of it in the forrums.  Thanks in advance for
any help.
					-John White

~~~~~
In closing, screw Flanders