[arch-general] library version conflict -- how does Arch solve this ?

Hello all, Today I installed Latex (texlive). Doing this installed new versions of libpng and libjpeg, and this broke emacs, xv and gnuplot (and maybe others I haven't discovered yet). I was able to make xv work again by removing and re-installing it. This didn't help for emacs, but adding a symbolic link in /usr/lib (to the wrong library !!!) made it work again. But I've been unable to get gnuplot working again, and this is one of my most essential tools. So what's the Arch way to solve this ? I find it extremely strange that updating a library removes the original - never seen this on any other distro. Nor is there any need to do this. Ciao, -- FA O tu, che porte, correndo si ? E guerra e morte !