I'll throw this out one more time and see if anyone bites . . .

my website DocumentRoot is /web/httpd/htdocs/ -- no matter what I
change in the apache2 configuration files (/etc/apache2/apache2.conf and
/etc/apache2/sites-available/default) the
server tries to go to /etc/apache2/htdocs. My question is - where is
apache2 getting this?

I have searched my entire system with the following command:

find . -type f | xargs -n 30 grep DocumentRoot

The only places DocumentRoot is mentioned is where I expected it to be
and everything is spelled correctly, etc. Strange.

I might also add that these same config files are running just fine on
four other servers - three Debian systems and one Ubuntu 10.04. Another
interesting clue is that apache2 will not start at all if
/web/httpd/htdocs/ is not there (I moved it aside) even though it never
seems to reference it after the initial check. The site "sort of works"
by placing a soft link in the /etc/apache2 directory and pointing it at
the "real" DocumentRoot. But that is a hack - and it messes up the log
file locations I want.

So - need help here . . . Anyone??