mysqlhotcopy.pl --allowold

NetWare 6.5 SP5
MySQL upgraded from 4.0.26a to 5.0.21
Perl updated with modules for MySQL 5.0 (Perl 5.8.4 MySQL 5.0.3a)

Running mysqlhotcopy.pl with the --allowold switch doesn't create a 
"_old" backup directory as the first line of the screen output
suggests

Existing hotcopy directory renamed to 'sys:/mysqlbak/mysql_old'

Using my.cnf file to specify root's password for mysqlhotcopy so command 
line is

perl sys:\mysql\scripts\mysqlhotcopy.pl --allowold mysql sys:/mysqlbak

where sys:/mysqlbak was manually created beforehand.  Have also tried 
specifying sys:\mysqlbak but no difference.

Using --allowold or --addtodest will still backup the database, it's 
just that --allowold isn't keeping a backup copy as "_old".

Interestingly if I manually create sys:/mysqlbak/mysql_old and then run 
mysqlhotcopy.pl with the --allowold switch, mysqlhotcopy.pl reports

Deleting previous 'old' hotcopy directory ('sys:/mysqlbak/mysql_old')
Existing hotcopy directory renamed to 'sys:/mysqlbak/mysql_old'

and lo and behold sys:/mysqlbak/mysql_old is indeed gone so the removal 
bit works, it's just the (re-)creation that doesn't.