The *conf tools are unfriendly to output files that have imperfect contents.  For example, a system crash could leave empty files where preexisting config files would be, and then pm*conf refuse to recreate them.  This behaviour is undocumented, and makes program-invoked use of pm*conf more complicated.  In particular, service-pmlogger's intermittent use of pmlogconf is crippled if the .../pmlogger/config.default file gets zeroed somehow.

% touch /tmp/foo
% pmlogconf -c /tmp/foo
pmlogconf: Error: existing "/tmp/foo" is not a pmlogconf control file
% pmieconf -f /tmp/foo 
pmieconf: error - /tmp/foo is not a rule customization file (bad header)
% pmieconf -F -f /tmp/foo
pmieconf: error - /tmp/foo is not a rule customization file (bad header)

These tools should be made more suitable for program-invoked use.