I'm so sorry, but I found some incompatibilities in pdfetex in dvi mode. My silly test, attached in il1test.zip, or in case that the mailer could remove it, available from ftp:/ftp.gust.org.pl/TeX/GUST/test/il1test.zip can show you that some primitives give strange output, e.g. not expected headlines and footers using pdfetex based latex format.

I have also obtained headlines and footers in the case of pdfelatex and pdfxlatex (1.20b-2.1). However, pdflatex (1.20b) (i.e., non e-TeX version) seems to output the same dvi as latex or elatex. Best regards, Akira