[2.96.1] problem: latex generates pdf rather than dvi

Hi all.

I just encountered a problem with the new beta: a run of latex which generated
pdf as output rather than dvi.  Here are the first few lines:

latex t1lib_doc.tex
This is pdfeTeX, Version 3.14159-1.20a-rc1-2.1 (Web2C 7.5.2)
output format initialized to DVI
entering extended mode
(./t1lib_doc.tex
LaTeX2e <2003/12/01>


The transcript is rather long: this is a 100+ page document which I'm not
the author of.  The only clues I can see are a sequence of error messages
like this:

Package hyperref Warning: Token not allowed in a PDFDocEncoded string,
(hyperref)                removing `\<def>-command' on input line 29.

which makes me wonder if the hyperref package somehow overrode the choice
of dvi output.

This problem makes me wonder if we are really ready to have the latex
engine switched to pdfeTeX, or if that change should wait until after
some transition period.

  -- Dave