Understanding differences between releases and ports

[Stevan Tiefert]

Hello list,

I have problems understanding a base concept :-(

Is that right, when I install 5.2.1-RELEASE and I install the 
ports-distribution with cvsup and keep them up to date, that the ports I 
build afterwards with "make install" are newer than the 
release-precompiled-packages distributed with 5.2.1-RELEASE?

Is that right that this procedure (with cvsup) is NOT ONLY correcting paths 
for the distfiles of ports in the ports-tree, then also replaces old versions 
of ports by newer ones?

If so, does it mean that I could use 5.2.1-RELEASE and an updated portstree 
resulting in getting in example gnome 2.8 and kde 3.4 and so on? Have I to 
see the RELEASE-version abstracted separated from the portstree? And how is 
compatibility granted between different RELEASE-versions and the 
up-to-date-ports-tree?

With regards
Stevan Tiefert