[PLUG] Discussion topic - Choosing to run Gentoo vs Debian or Red Hat

[Mike Connors]

I recently had a tech interview w. an organization that runs Gentoo on 
all its
servers. Part of the interview was to login into a test box, build a 
LAMP server,
install some software and upgrade some stuff.

This was my first time ever doing anything w. Gentoo and I was quite 
surprised by
how different it was than say Debian or RH. Not to mention the lack of good
documentation or what I call "build guides" that you can follow and will 
help
you build out a server. Granted, they're never perfect but can usually 
get you
85% or more of the way home.

So, my questions for discussion are:

1. Gentoo's claim to fame is that by compiling each package for the
specific architecture that performance gains are realized.
Has anyone found this to be empirically true?

2. If I were making the decisions on which Linux distro to run, I would 
choose
one which I think would more people would tend to have experience with 
and that
has a greater mindshare such as Debian or RH.

3. Does anyone have significant experience working on or supporting Gentoo?
If so, what has your experience been?