> MacTeX installs the full version of TeX Live 2007 from the TeX User Group (TUG)... Following standard TeX Live practice, the bulk of the distribution is installed in /usr/local/texlive/2007, but a skeleton texmf tree for local additions is provided in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local. Next year's distribution will then go to /usr/local/texlive/2008/ without disturbing the 2007 distribution so users can experiment before committing to it. Additions made to /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local will not be disturbed by the MacTeX installer, so local additions will continue to apply to distributions in future years.

> The TeX Live installed by MacTeX is identical to that obtained by installing using TeX Live's own install script, with the following exceptions:... MacTeX's TeX Live is configured to use $HOME/Library/texmf rather than $HOME/texmf for user additions to the texmf tree. This is the location used by previous versions of TeX on Mac OS X from Gerben Wierda. After adding files to this location, texhash need not be run.

> When the TeX Live install script finishes, it prints a message suggesting that users modify their PATH variable appropriately. MacTeX modifies both PATH and MAN entries automatically. This modification is done using scripts from Gerben Wierda and is consistent with his TeX distributions.

Okay that last paragraph lost me. And the second to last paragraph lost me, too.

First paragraph: There should be a skeleton texmf-local structure in:
/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local
There isn't a texmf-local file (with a skeleton structure) there. But... I do know what the skeleton structure is so I could create a texmf-local folder in there and install everything into that no probs.

Second paragraph introduces the notion of $HOME wtf is that?
/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local (in first paragraph) is now magically referred to as $HOME/texmf
and so $HOME/Library/texmf is otherwise known as where precisely?????

HOW THE %#@&#! ARE THESE INSTRUCTIONS MEANT TO BE COMPREHENSIBLE