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Ok, let's try 30bit_longdigit14.patch:
 patch -p0 < 30bit_longdigit14.patch
 autoconf && autoheader
 ./configure && make
I'm using two computers:
 - marge: Pentium4, 32 bits, 3 GHz (32 bits)
 - lisa: Core Quad (Q9300), 64 bits, 2.5 GHz (64 bits)
Both uses 32 bits digit (and 64 bits twodigits), py3k trunk and Linux.
* My bench_int.py:
 - 32-bit without patch: 1670.7 ms
 - 32-bit with patch: 1547.8 ms (+7.4%)
 - 64-bit without patch: 885.2 ms
 - 64-bit with patch: 627.1 ms (+29.2%)
* pidigits 2000 (I removed the calls to print): 
 lowest result on 5 runs:
 - 32-bit without patch: 2991.5 ms
 - 32-bit with patch: 3445.4 ms (-15.2%) SLOWER!
 - 64-bit without patch: 1949.9 ms
 - 64-bit with patch: 973.0 ms (+50.1%)
* pybench.py (minimum total)
 - 32-bit without patch: 9209 ms
 - 32-bit with patch:
 - 64-bit without patch: 4430 ms
 - 64-bit with patch: 4330 ms (=)
pybench details:
Test 32 bits (without,patch) | 64 bits (without,patch)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 CompareFloatsIntegers: 293ms 325ms | 113ms 96ms
 CompareIntegers: 188ms 176ms | 129ms 98ms
 DictWithIntegerKeys: 117ms 119ms | 73ms 69ms
SimpleIntFloatArithmetic: 192ms 204ms | 84ms 80ms
 SimpleIntegerArithmetic: 188ms 196ms | 84ms 80ms
-----------------------------------------------------------------
On 64 bits, all integer related tests are faster. On 32 bits, some
tests are slower.
Sum up: on 64 bits, your patch is between cool (30%) and awesome 
(50%) :-) On 32 bits, it's not a good idea to use 32 bits digit 
because it's a little bit slower.
=> I would suggest to use 2^30 base only if sizeof(long)>=8 (64 bits 
CPU).
Note: I already get similar result (2^30 is slower on 32 bits CPU) in 
older tests.