> > Symbol's function definition is void: package-initialize

Obviously you could work around it by adding

(unless (fboundp 'package-initialize) (defalias 'package-initialize 'ignore))

to your init file...

> This is not a good state of affairs...

...but I couldn't agree more with you about packages messing with the init file. I *hate* custom for several reasons, and that's one of them.