Configure/make combinations often install programs based in the way that is passed to them via environment variables (like INSTALL_PROG) or arguments. This makes a lot of sense. On FreeBSD, the default way to install a binary is "install -s -m 555", which is also reasonable. However, this combination can backfire, if a software package also installs a script, strip will be unhappy ("File format not recognized") causing install to fail with the cryptic error message "install: wait: No such file or directory".
As a solution, note that install honours the environment variables STRIPBIN and DONTSTRIP.