It appears that /sbin/mount.ncp was designed to provide some simple
defaults for ncpmount command, but it does not respect the numerous options
available for ncpmount. A line such as this in /etc/fstab

K2  /mnt/k2/var  ncp
defaults,mode=644,uid=root,gid=pbc,owner=pbc,volume=TMP,passwdfile=/etc/ncp
pass,server=K2,user=SERVICE_K2,multiple    0 0

will result in an ncpmount command that has a different mode, the default
owner, no password, different file modes, no multiple option, no volume.
There are *lots* more options that would also be omitted from the ncpmount
command.

I found it *far* more useful to simply replace /sbin/mount.ncp with a
symlink to /usr/bin/ncpmount.  It now does what I asked it to do.

Thanks for listening,
Philip