When did creating a package become a REQUIRED part of building a port?

[Chris H]

Greetings,
 I've been tracking -STABLE for years on all my servers (currently 8-4).
So it seems I missed the memo. But recently, I decided to dust off an
old TYAN Thunder LE-T PIII. Sure, it's old. But it's got 2 Adaptec
U160 Ultra-Wide/Ultra-3 SCSI ports on it, that'll allow me to hang 30
SCSI platters on it, and I intend to use it to produce Install images,
Updates, custom kernels for all my hardware. Kind of a Pointyhat/Tinderbox.
It's perfect for a "set it, and forget it". It's actually a pretty good
workhorse.
Anyway, to the point;
For this install, I opted to download, and use the 8-4-DVD1 DVD to perform
the install. All went as anticipated, I played the CVS-->SVN dance, updated
src && ports, build/installed world/kernel. Performed mergemaster(8), then
bounced the box, and installed Perl. I then decided I wanted to build a
light X environment, because some things are easier with it. So I chose
the meta-port x11/xorg-minimal. That's when the fun began; I chose
make install && make clean (yes, I know make install clean works too).
Then all of the sudden I see all these messages about creating package...
What? I didn't have anything in make.conf(5) to inspire that. I read
nothing about that in /usr/ports/UPDATING, and I haven't installed, nor
do I have anything in /usr/local/etc that would encourage that sort of thing.
What gives, and how do I turn this off? Sure, I've got a lot of platter to
burn. But I'm a bit shy on CPU cycles, and it seems pointless to whip up
a .tbz file, only to be clobbered within seconds of completion. I'm sure to
many of you, this is all old news. But this is a real issue for me, and I'd
be extremely grateful, if someone can help me turn this off.

Thank you for all your time, and consideration.

--Chris

P.S. Apologies for the length of this.