It seems that DESTDIR played better than doing a live make install with the /tmp/mark routine. Not saying that the /tmp/mark method is faulty, but something was amiss somewhere for that instance. CRUX, Arch, and Gentoo port build files give some useful info on packages that need extra steps when installing into a temporary directory. Creating immodules and loaders was the key with gtk2.
Maybe this one will be a keeper!