>> By the way, Debian has even more packages (approaching 50000) but somewhat lacks the mainstream traction. It might be an option for you nevertheless.

Debian might be ok.  My issue is that I have nothing but contempt for apt.  Sabayon,arch,debian are pretty much my choices.  I hate to say it, but for a backup distro, debian would probably be the best bet.

I used to use a debian sid bassed distro... Now I need to remember what that was... Suppose I could just use sid.