I think I recall:

1) it isn't stripping  them, it just is NOT generating them to begin with for each message

2) the prefixing of the DIGEST message text with the bottom-banner preserves some (possibly) copyright or other instructions/restrictons that list-owners are fond of adding.

If I am not mistaken, there may be some other LISTSERV(R) mechanism for prepending DIGEST boilerplate, but I haven't investigated that.

At 03:42 04/02/2000 Sunday , Winship wrote:
 >When compiling the daily DIGEST for the list LISTSERV strips
 >bottom banners.  It does not seem to do that for top banners.
 >
 >Why the different treatment?