Etch Upgrade Puzzle

[Carl Brown <cbsled@verizon.net>]

I just switched my sources.list over to the new mirrors, using:

deb ftp://debian.lcs.mit.edu/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://debian.lcs.mit.edu/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

apt-get upgrade says:

837 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 504 not upgraded.

Among the packages held back are:
x-window-system-core, kde*, and gnome*.

So I think that it might be time for a dist-upgrade due to the excessive 
number of held back packages.

But apt-get dist-upgrade says:

1136 upgraded, 111 newly installed, 157 to remove and 153 not upgraded.

Among the packages to remove are:
gnome-core kde-core kdebase x-window-system x-window-system-core 
xfree86-common xserver-common xserver-xfree86 xserver-xorg

Obviously I don't want to do that!
Any ideas about what could be causing this?

-- 
Carl Brown
Whitefield, NH USA