Even a >= check would have been suboptimal. Rather than

    /* generated code */
    if ( ++p == pe )
        goto _test_eof;

or

    /* generated code */
    if ( ++p >= pe )
        goto _test_eof;

they should have had

    /* generated code */
    if ( ++p == pe )
        goto _test_eof;
    assert(p < pe);

since having servers core dumping would have drawn attention to the bug in a way that counting one byte too many and then hitting _test_eof would not.