aclocal 1.8 produces useless aclocal.m4

I have been using
  aclocal -I src/m4 --output=src/autoconf/aclocal.m4
to produce a stand-alone aclocal.m4 file (with all necessary m4 files
concatenated).
it works fine with 1.4

aclocal 1.8 produces aclocal.m4 with many "m4_include" statements which
defeat the purpose (for me).
Is it possible to tell aclocal 1.8 to concatenate all the necessary m4
files instead?

Thanks.

PS.  I also get these warnings with 1.8:

aclocal -I src/m4 --output=src/autoconf/aclocal.m4
/usr/bin/aclocal: line 246: ((: 57 2 <= 13 : syntax error in expression (error 
token is "2 <= 13 ")
/usr/share/aclocal/gsl.m4:5: warning: underquoted definition of AM_PATH_GSL
  run info '(automake)Extending aclocal'
  or see http://sources.redhat.com/automake/automake.html#Extending%20aclocal
/usr/share/aclocal/freetype2.m4:7: warning: underquoted definition of 
AC_CHECK_FT2
/usr/share/aclocal/check.m4:5: warning: underquoted definition of AM_PATH_CHECK
configure.ac:322: warning: AC_COMPILE_IFELSE was called before AC_AIX
autoconf/specific.m4:427: AC_AIX is expanded from...
configure.ac:322: the top level
configure.ac:322: warning: AC_RUN_IFELSE was called before AC_AIX
configure.ac:344: warning: AC_COMPILE_IFELSE was called before AC_AIX
configure.ac:344: the top level
configure.ac:344: warning: AC_RUN_IFELSE was called before AC_AIX
...

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k
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