I brought up the idea of adding a Macports freetype variant that includes the Infinality patches, and Jeremy suggested I repeat the suggestion on here.
What is infinality? They're a set of patches that aim to improve font rendering quality. With them, quality is at least as good as it is under MS Windows or Mac OS X, possibly even better (with the usual personal taste caveats). http://www.infinality.net/blog/infinality-freetype-patches/
I will see how straightforward it is to build the freetype from MacPorts with these patches, and if there's a quality gain. I sure hope so; the gain is visible under Linux (though not as spectacular as it apparently was), and font rendering quality is considerably less good under XQuartz than it is on "stock" linux (IMVHO). R.B.