is there a reason suse puts gnome libs in opt/gnome/lib and not in /usr/lib?

yep. It calls LSB+some reasonable thinking. Linux distros are quite horrible in regards of number of stuff in /usr/bin and /usr/lib... Pretty much same trouble as with ddl in Win. 8) So SuSE just trying to make it more logical and clean. You could just stick symbol link of opt/gnome/lib to point to /usr/lib, dropping all stuff from there to /usr/lib. Would make your system a mess, but whatever makes you happy. Cheers, Sergei