Not, that weird:

    > Host names that contain only one label in
    > addition to local, for example
    > "My-Computer.local", are resolved using
    > Multicast DNS (Bonjour) by default. Host names
    > that contain two or more labels in addition to
    > local, for example "server.domain.local", are
    > resolved using a DNS server by default.

Apparently there's nothing wrong with adapting, say, .dev.local (or .ifft.local) with a coresponding hack, ahem, file, under /etc/resolver/dev.local:

http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/01/04/mac-os-x-and-local-doma...