I notice that after emerging software, portage/distfiles contains the
actual downloaded files. There are also stray directories that seem to
remain in /var/tmp/portage.

I have four questions:
1) Is it OK to remove the Distfiles? The only way I would emerge again
would be to upgrade, and that means I would not need the old bz2 files.

2) Is it OK to remove the /var/tmp/portage directories after a successful
emerge?

3) What if I decide to archive the Distfiles to another location? Would
there be any reason I'd bring it back?

4) If it IS necessary to keep them, can I symlink to the archive location
so I don't clutter up my root partition?

The reason I think I have so many distfiles was because of the
installation from CD instructions that said to copy over all the distfiles.

Living and learning. Thanks for the help.