I'm late to the party but...

>> use the obj or obj.MACHINE semantics.
>>=20
>> Once the <bsd.obj.mk> NetBSD src objdir semantics have been cleaned up=20
>> I'll reinvestigate this simplification.

>While I realize it may be a bit of a pain, I'd appreciate it if you can=20
>make "obj" and "obj.MACHINE" work again. I use them in non-NetBSD programs=
>=20
>that still use bsd.*.mk files.

Ok, this could probably all be sorted with suitable settings for MKOBJDIRS
and appropriate magic in bsd.obj.mk

Eg. in addition to the current yes/no

oldbsd	- look for obj and obj.$MACHINE

personally I set it to 'auto' and have some magic to make the dir
(based on $MAKEOBJDIR) if needed before chdiring to it.
It shouldn't be necessary to have make(1), do anything - though the 
MAKEOBJ* ones are useful and reasonably documented - so I wouldn't touch those. 

--sjg