Updating/Handling Libs after DISK INSTALL

[ket]

when it comes to xorg (excluding modular-xorG)
and system dependencies, how do you handle
updating libraries for packages like cairo,
pango, gtk, ncurses, bison, latex etc...
(or are my UNIX skills too puny for a package system? i.e. git, svn, cvs, mercurial etc...)

I know theres always pkgsrc, dpkg, 0install
and many others one could slap on a LFS
system but i like to take more control
over my system when it comes to
package management... =/