Thanks a bunch Stefano, As long as the "mechanism" works (ie, I can set an ACLOCAL_PATH to a set of directories and the right thing happens) I can solve my problem by applying a local patch, and when the dust settles and a production solution is in place then newer releases of automake will no longer need the path.
While I'm tempted to ask what I can do to help move this along, I'm massively crunched for time right now. Since I'm not planning to do anything "creative" with this functionality, I'll probably just try the patch chain that Paolo posted (in the thread Stefano mentioned above) and see how that works for me. Thanks again... H
