The typical user will experience only negative benefits from setting

CFLAGS on modern versions of FreeBSD.

en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-edge/chapter.xml

@@ -2034,15 +2034,14 @@ Fetching 133 new ports or files... done.</screen>
 	used every time you run <command>make</command>, so it is a good
 	idea to set them to something sensible for your system.</para>
 
-      <para>A typical user will probably want to copy the
-	<makevar>CFLAGS</makevar> and
-	<makevar>NO_PROFILE</makevar> lines found in
+      <para>A typical user will probably want to copy and uncomment
+	the <makevar>NO_PROFILE</makevar> line found in
 	<filename>/usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf</filename>
-	to <filename>/etc/make.conf</filename> and uncomment them.</para>
+	to <filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>.</para>
 
-      <para>Examine the other definitions (<makevar>COPTFLAGS</makevar>,
-	<makevar>NOPORTDOCS</makevar> and so
-	on) and decide if they are relevant to you.</para>
+      <para>Examine the other definitions, like
+	<makevar>NOPORTDOCS</makevar>,
+	and decide if they are relevant to you.</para>
     </sect2>
 
     <sect2 id="updating-etc">
@@ -2864,17 +2863,6 @@ Building everything..
 		  certainly do not need it.</para>
 	      </listitem>
 
-	      <listitem>
-		<para>Also in <filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>, set
-		  <makevar>CFLAGS</makevar> to something like <option>-O
-		    -pipe</option>.  The optimization <option>-O2</option>
-		  is much slower, and the optimization difference between
-		  <option>-O</option> and <option>-O2</option> is normally
-		  negligible.  <option>-pipe</option> lets the compiler use
-		  pipes rather than temporary files for communication, which
-		  saves disk access (at the expense of memory).</para>
-	      </listitem>
-
 	      <listitem>
 		<para>Pass the
 		  <option>-j<replaceable>n</replaceable></option> option to