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??

That's a head scratcher - it ought to just work. You're restarting
apache after the config changes, right?

And there is only one apache running and one apache installed on the
system, correct?

Yeah, all of that. I may be getting closer - I think I have a problem
in the virtual hosting configs. I can get it to work now but with only
one of the hosts. This site has two url's handled by virtual hosting.

Fixed it - the problem was in my virtual host configuration. I have
several urls hosted by this same site. Thanks for the replies . . .