Actually, I've just realized that some the hooks do still get called with «dpkg-buildpackage -S -nc», and some of those *could* be expecting the architecture variables to be present in the environment, although it seems unlikely.
- Bug#810762: debuild: shouldn't call dpkg-architecture for sour... Neil Mayhew
- Bug#810762: dpkg-buildpackage: Do not call dpkg-architect... Neil Mayhew