Thanks, I've used your procedure to do that to the 2.1.7 branch and it seems to have worked well (git cherry now gives the expected result):
http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/portage.git;a=commit;h=797fb70107834d0346e5201b7a9aaa5d36978c81 -- Thanks, Zac
