I ran into some issues recently with the IT tests. I use a mirrorof * to redirect everything to a repo manager but this is also redirecting the file based repositories. I can't think of any good reason this should apply to anything other than remote repos. I have two proposals:
1. Change maven so that file based repos ignore all mirror settings
2. Change maven so that file based repos ignore the wildcard but will respond if the mirror specifically names it.
I can't think of any reason why a mirror should override a local repo so I suggest we go with #1.