Does a DPK middleware install really require the DB to be upgraded first?

Please excuse my ignorance if I am missing something obvious here.  I have been experimenting with the DPK install of a PeopleSoft Middleware deployment and am running into errors during the "Configuring Pre-Boot PeopleSoft Environment" step.  I found an article (Doc ID 2362334.1) which states that in order to upgrade the PIA, the database would first need to be upgraded to the same PT release.  So it appears that the Oracle's DPK installer attempts to connect to the DB to validate the PTools version.  How do you get around this?

I typically do in-place upgrades.  For that reason, I would build out my weblogic and tuxedo servers ahead of applying a patch or upgrade to the database.  This is not to mention that I often have most of my needed infrastructure in place on a host.  In other words, I may not need a new version of Java, the Oracle Client, WebLogic, Tuxedo etc...  I may just want to deploy new PeopleSoft PIA instances and App Server Instances etc... on the existing software, and without connecting to a DB to validate anything.