[make skips "all" in eg "make clean all install"]

OK. now I see it too.
(If I "make" in a leaf, not the whole tree.)
This behaviour disappears when I define
"BUILD" in the environment.

Looking at bsd.prog.mk, there is a rule:
.if !defined(BUILD)
${DESTDIR}${BINDIR}/${PROGNAME}: .MADE
.endif

With an "install" target, the installed program becomes
dependant on the to-be-built one, and "make" decides
to do nothing here.
I don't yet understand how this is supposed to work
at all.

best regards
Matthias