[CentOS] less strange behavior

Have encountered a (rather minor but puzzling and annoying) problem with
"less" that I can reproduce on multiple CentOS4 boxes.  Only seems to be
a problem for a root login on a VC.  Here's the scenario:

1) Login as root on a VC.
2) Type "less /etc/printcap" or any other text file.
3) less hangs until Ctrl-C is typed, then displays the file.

If a gzipped file is tried, after the Ctrl-C it warns that the file is
binary rather than unzipping and displaying as might be expected.  Using
"zless <filename>.gz" works OK.  Seems to be something to do with
lesspipe.sh behavior set up in /etc/profile.d/less.sh...

4) Type "unset LESSOPEN"
5) Now less works with text files without hanging, but without the smart
wrapper behavior.  (zless still works with .gz files.)

Logging in as a user on a VC there is no problem, and doing "su -" on
the VC there is no problem, working in a konsole as a user or root, or
doing ssh to another machine as root, no problems - less works as
expected, except with a root login on a VC.  Can't find anything in
Bugzilla and don't recall encountering this on RH-any-version, FC1/2/3,
or WBEL3.

A)  Can anyone else confirm this?  Could be something strange about my
root .??* files that have been propagated across machines, but I can't
find any problem.

B)  Does this happen on RHEL4?

C)  If so, could somebody with a RHEL entitlement bugzilla it?  If not,
this could be a CentOS4-specific bug.

Thanks,
Phil