I’ve noticed inconsistencies with the pre-built package archives since about the time of NetBSD 6.2. Whenever I’ve done a clean install of NetBSD (7.x , 8.x or -current) and then try to install some packages from almost any corresponding package archive, I usually run into issues with incompatible libraries. I’m not sure how it happens that packages in the archive end up this way.
One solution I’ve been trying with some success is to checkout the pkgsrc that corresponds to the archive I want to use and build the packages that are of interest to me using a pbulk build setup. However, that exposes another issues that has me completely stumped - some packages that exist in the package archive fail to build on my system. One good example is if I check out the sources for pkgsrc-2018Q4 and try building the meta-pkg xfce4 it fails, but the binary archive for it exists on the server. Assuming the sources are the same for both my build and the one that was posted on the server then the question becomes, what’s different in the two build setups? I’m beginning to suspect that maybe the packages in the 2018Q4 archive on the server were not built under a stock NetBSD 8.0 system, or there are some special setups used that aren’t reflected in the pkg build setup. It might be interesting to compare the contents of mk.conf for example it see if that might explain the differences.