v8.2/AIX5.3 moving to v9.5.1/AIX6.1
v8 manual says BUFFPAGE db cfg par is obsolete, yet v9.5 says that it is being still used. See below:

v8 documentation:
The following database configuration parameters are obsolete:
buffpage: In previous versions, you could create or alter a buffer pool using a default size, and the value of buffpage would be taken as the default. In Version 8, you should explicitly specify the size of your buffer pools, using the SIZE keyword on the ALTER BUFFERPOOL or CREATE BUFFERPOOL statements.

v9.5 documentation:
for ALTER BUFFERPOOL command - The number of pages is the new number of pages to be allocated to this specific buffer pool. You can also use a value of -1, which indicates that the size of the buffer pool should be the value found in the buffpage database configuration parameter.

So what is the truth?

When IBM says it is deprecated that means they are putting people on advance notice that it should not be used and will be removed at some date in the future. IBM is pretty good about providing compatibility from one release to another, so they have left it in the code for now, but at some point it may be suddenly gone.

thanks, Marcus