>    Ok, just one more question.. Will cvs notice that I have been
> meddling in its files, and refuse to update it those files? If so, how
> do I make sure that cvs will overwrite my personal modifications?
> 
>    I have "avoided" finding these things out by simply nuking the files
> before. But is that really required?

cvs should do a good job "merging" your changes and a new update. When you 
do "cvs up" you should see "M".

If you see "C" in the cvs output or if you see lines like the following in 
the file you edited:

<<<<<<< file.name
your stuff
=======
real stuff
>>>>>>> 1.5

Then that means you have a conflict. You can manually edit the file to 
clean that up.