Gentoo is on my list of distros to try. The reason it has not been a priority for me is that is just doesn't seem like the half of a microsecond gained in execution time is worth all of the fuss of compiling everything. Years ago, an FTP server was compromised that was running CentOS that our group maintained. The breach was probably due to a poor configuration and not the core operating system itself. A co-worker thought it would be a good idea to put a hardened gentoo install on the box instead. I appreciate the nod towards security but the initial compile took over 2 days to complete.
Granted, a Gentoo install can be done more traditionally to speed up the process. But as we all know, time = money, and in any production environment, having a 2 day downtime could impact your organization dramatically.
Seems more like a distro for tinkerers--which a lot of us are here
You got that right. It is for tinkerers.
Not only for performance gains, which with today's cpu/memory/ssd isn't much. It is more because you can tinker with the flags everything in your machine is compiled with. You can overlay anything you want. Build a system from scratch with hand-picked components.
I personally like the idea of having all the source code that runs my machine easily available. If you want to tinker with any component, you can just patch against the gentoo package and done.
Most packages have patches to make them software play nice with the system, so the package system is designed to patch -> compile -> run.
Tinker to the most minute detail. It is amazing.
That said, it is time consuming. And a rathole. Just like tweeking your keyboard. Sometimes you just need something you can plug and go. For that you have debian, Ubuntu or Fedora.