make install clean (in a ports dir) usually just works. It fetches dependencies, deals with dependence versioning correctly, applies already tested FreeBSD patches, etc. Add to that csvsup and portupgrade, which help you upgrade everything correctly in essentially one full swoop, and the whole system is hard to match.

That's been my general impression with the Unix half of OSX: it is Unix, it's just ... mediocre. Everything is just more of a pain in the ass than it would be with FreeBSD or Linux.