as it turns out, there may be another factor at work here.  if you have
upgraded your system to NetBSD-current, then downgraded it again by
reinstalling the 1.3.x binary sets, you should go into /usr/lib and remove
any versions of libc greater than 12.20.  not doing so can cause the exact
problem mentioned here, which is a little unexpected but quite verifiable. 

--scott