The latest version of pacman supports build-time dependencies and package integrity checks (MD5). I've also added direct-to-file logging with the Log File config directive (UseSysLog is still available though).
Using -Qii on a package will show you which config files have been modified since the package was installed, and you can now specify an explicit repository to fetch a package from when using --sync (eg, pacman --sync current/gaim).
That's about it. Have fun!