Actually they haven't been supporting ReiserFS. They've been paying Reiser's company, Namesys, for ReiserFS support, but with Hans Reiser in prison (thanks to all the "gossipy details"), thats ended.
I don't think you're making a fundamental mistake here. Not all distributions are the same.
Gentoo is a ricer's OS. Folks who use it like to tweak systems and learn stuff, and maybe put some bitchin' neon ground effects on it and a killer stereo. SuSE is a professional company that sells guaranteed products.
If some part of Gentoo doesn't work well, well then tough cookies there Johnny Rocket. Your mileage may vary. No warranty. No refunds.
SuSE guarantees their product. If a supported version of SuSE supports ReiserFS, then the company will support it to the best of their ability.
I don't care about the rest of the crap you're talking about, as it's not what the original poster asked about. He wanted to know of a journaling filesystem for his old SuSE boxes. Someone suggested ReiserFS. I, like most others, recommended he upgrade and use ext3. However should he choose to use his older OS and should ReiserFS be available and supported, it may not be a bad idea _technically_.
If Richard Stallman went out and murdered some kittens would you stop using the GCC compiler? Would you shun FSF projects? I think that somehow GCC will still be a _technically_ sound compiler regardless of it's original author's penchant for cat-butchery. Perhaps its long term future might be in jeopardy, but I'd think it'd still be able to compile my hello.c on my current OS.
You are okay in pointing out that ReiserFS might not be a good long term strategy but what does any of that have to do with him using ReiserFS on an old distribution where it is _fully supported by a professional company_? This isn't the Department of Homeland Security here. I don't think this guy's choice of filesystems has to be that big a deal.
I suppose the worst part is that I know I'm talking to a tree here. You're going to go over your same arguments again and again, and you'll probably Google even more factoids to back up your obtuse position. I've already responded twice too many times, and in the interest of sparing others another NetNews-like discussion between us I'll let you respond and then I'll give it a rest.
Ciao.
Jeffrey.