That's the point. You are saying with "page" or "direct" that it is not necessary. But "Q" changes the transform matrix. Thus you should not use "q" and "Q" with keywords "page" or "direct".
? afair `page' keyword has been introduced to fix the problem of not balanced q..Q within ET..BT, so why the user should not use them? We all agree that `direct' is for something different, but `page' keyword suits q..Q pretty well. But both makes problems is used together with no-keyword form. And both wouldn't, if pdfTeX didn't postpone matrix serialization just after \pdfliteral. And still I can't see the reason, since in the case of \pdfliteral this matrix have to be wrote anyway, so why not in a proper place -) -- Pawe/l Jackowski P.Jackowski@gust.org.pl