Maybe before, but right now a typical txout in a generate looks like:
"out":[
{
"value":"50.24250000",
"scriptPubKey":"OP_DUP OP_HASH160 740ecaf436d5867903c722d783fc994c25a29b15 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG"
}
]
Hmm. I checked latest bitcoin code looks like it is still paying to public key. Are you sure this coinbase output is generated by bitcoind not some pool's modification?