unexpected default formatting for some elements

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com>]

  some of this may have been fixed by the latest release of
the stylesheets (which i have yet to install), but i'm writing
a short document demonstrating some of the more common DB
markup, and generating PDF using some fairly generic formatting
produces some weird results in a few cases:

1) an epigraph with no attribution still produces a "--" on
   the next line, as if in preparation for the expected
   attribution (which isn't there)

2) a literallayout with 'linenumbering="numbered"' does not,
   in fact, do any line numbering.

3) in a <variablelist> with a <varlistentry> with more than
   one <term>, the rendering of that entry is broken over a 
   page and, well, thoroughly messed up (the first term seems
   to have gone missing)

do any of these sound familiar?

rday