For a while now, when I compile config.new and subsequently
   try to install it the make runs install without destination
   directories and this make install fails. Has this been addressed
   already?

Are you trying to compile and install it somewhere other than the
complete source tree?  It's expecting to get BINDIR from the usr.sbin
Makefile.inc, and will probably fail in this case.

I guess if we're going to distribute config.new separately, that we
should account for this.