So 17 out of 44 thousand means that mixing ports is inevitable? I'd never even heard of most of those, and I've certainly never needed them. If I did, I'd either run a system with just ports or make my own packages.
Saying that mixing ports and packages is "inevitable" is so wrong, it's just plain stupid. It's also bad advice to giv
Nobody said is was inevitable for every user. The conditions under which it cannot be avoided have been clearly stated twice now.
So Joe Ubuntu user decides to try out FreeBSD. He quickly installs most of what he needs using binary packages and is pretty satisfied with the experience. Now he wants to watch a DVD and finds out that there is no binary package published for libdvdcss.
What are you going to tell him? Don't install it from ports because mixing ports and packages is "bad"? Run "pkg delete -a" and reinstall everything from source (which will take days) because that's the right way? Set up your own package server and populate it with poudriere?
Preaching dogma is no way to provide good advice. There are pitfalls when mixing ports and packages, most of which result from your ports tree and installed ports/packages being out of sync. Explaining exactly what those pitfalls are and how to avoid them is a far more intelligent approach.