Bug#477194: starting exim4 with identical options from command line OK

[R E Riding]

Package: exim4
Version: 4.69-2
Followup-For: Bug #477194

If I start exim4 from the command line

#/usr/sbin/exim4 -bd -q30m

it starts without complaint.  These are the exact options exim4 would 
normally start with in the past, but something in the startup sequence
has changed and it doesn't start through the normal services now.

-- Package-specific info:
Exim version 4.69 #1 built 12-Apr-2008 09:55:16
Copyright (c) University of Cambridge 2006
Berkeley DB: Berkeley DB 4.6.21: (September 27, 2007)
Support for: crypteq iconv() IPv6 GnuTLS move_frozen_messages
Lookups: lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch cdb dbm dbmnz dnsdb dsearch nis nis0 passwd
Authenticators: cram_md5 plaintext
Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect
Transports: appendfile/maildir/mailstore autoreply lmtp pipe smtp
Fixed never_users: 0
Size of off_t: 8
Configuration file is /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
# /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
#
# Edit this file and /etc/mailname by hand and execute update-exim4.conf
# yourself or use 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config'
#
# Please note that this is _not_ a dpkg-conffile and that automatic changes
# to this file might happen. The code handling this will honor your local
# changes, so this is usually fine, but will break local schemes that mess
# around with multiple versions of the file.
#
# update-exim4.conf uses this file to determine variable values to replace
# the DEBCONFsomethingDEBCONF strings in the configuration template files.
#
# Most settings found in here do have corresponding questions in the
# Debconf configuration, but not all of them.
#
# This is a Debian specific file

dc_eximconfig_configtype='smarthost'
dc_other_hostnames='trav.savageroad.com'
dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1'
dc_readhost='xmission.com'
dc_relay_domains=''
dc_minimaldns='false'
dc_relay_nets=''
dc_smarthost='mail.xmission.com'
CFILEMODE='644'
dc_use_split_config='false'
dc_hide_mailname='true'
dc_mailname_in_oh='true'
dc_localdelivery='mail_spool'
mailname:trav.savageroad.com

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.25 (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages exim4 depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.21     Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim4-base                    4.69-2+b1  support files for all Exim MTA (v4
ii  exim4-daemon-light            4.69-2+b1  lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon

exim4 recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  exim4/drec: