elvis vs. initial settings

[w trillich]

elvis is a way-cool grown-up vi. wonderfully powerful!

but
        1) it ignores my startup settings and
        2) it exits with status 1 so that "crontab -e" breaks

        elvis 2.1_4
        (debian) Linux 2.0.36 #2

-- 1

i'm using debian/gnu linux with the apt-get module feature
(instead of individual *.rpm files all over the place there's
a nice dependency-checking structure involving the *.deb
package system) and recently did a major upgrade...

and now elvis won't read my init settings. it works just
fine, but ignores my settings...

i've tried
        ~/.elvisrc
        ~/.exrc
        ~/.nexrc
        setenv EXINIT
        setenv NEXINIT
        setenv ELVIS

once i get into elvis i can do
        :source ~/.elvisrc
and voila, they take effect.

what are the likely suspects that would interfere?

-- 2

        # crontab -e
        <vi session, make a change>ZZ
        crontab: "vi" exited with status 1
        # vi someFileOrOther
        <tweak and munge>ZZ
        # echo $status
        1
        #

argh!