Chris Head enlightened us with:
> Since you haven't unmasked 0.43, it can't upgrade. When you run
> emerge -uatvDN world, it will then try to DOWNGRADE the package.
> 0.42 "doesn't exist" any more, so it'll ask you to downgrade to,
> say, 0.38 (latest not-masked package). I discovered this with PHP.

If they really delete a version, it's for a good reason. You shouldn't
use that version any more.

> I'm not sure what the proper solution for this is.

Upgrade to another masked version, or stick to the stable one.

> My solution involved copying the PHP 5.0.3 ebuild and its associated
> files from the Portage tree and putting them into my overlay.

That'll do what you want. I don't reccomend it, though.

> This keeps them available to Portage, which then doesn't keep
> bugging me to downgrade.

Again: there are always reasons for a move like that. I strongly
suggest you re-think your strategy.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa