..well.. fixed the notes problem anyway.
After re-installing the db using the oacs-5-3 version of site-nodes-procs* (to rule out any residual side effects), I see this:
/api-doc/ file not found
/api-doc/index file not found
/api-doc/index? the usual page shows up.
but that probably doesn't help much for test cases with the current code.
Am trying again with current cvs, since there appears to be some recent changes in those files..