These bugs have been 'inter-linked' i believe that is not the case.
I attempted to preseed a 32bit debian testing 686-pae.
Got error from Fuse configuring.
One of these bugs suggested modprobe required for fuse.
chroot /target then modprobe fuse produce errors relating to /lib/modules/<kernel>-486/ blah not found(32bit debian-cd/installer uses 486), i checked and sure enough /lib/modules/<kernel>-686-pae/ is what i have.
i then changed my preseed file to linux-image-486 and the installation went through fine.
anyway, off i pop.
bofh80