The ôòømktexfmtôòù tool from TeX Live 2009 apparently fails to honor the
ôòø--fmtdirôòù option:
FWIW, I attempted (in the development sources) to improve the error
messages and parsing, so at least the result is not just the mysterious
error. Instead it's now "unknown option --fmtdir, try --help".
Thanks,
Karl