I think problem is Debian "testing" is not released but too stable. So people tends to dive in without knowing how to deal with broken packages. After all it is testing, we need to know how to handle broken package :)
This brings out a bit of hypocracy in the typical Debian advocacy argument. To the argument "Debian stable is too old", we reply "you can always use testing or unstable". But now to those wanting to use testing and unstable, we reply "you are not advanced enough".
I am certainly not an advanced Debian package manager, but I am an incredibly advanced Unix user by any measure. I think it's a little disingenuous to claim that people like me shouldn't be using unstable.
My complaint wasn't that a particular package was broken, but that the package management system could get into a state where one can neither finish a package installation nor remove the package.
The person who pointed out that it is impossible, withough running a postrm script, to guarantee that package detrius has been fully removed, is of course correct. But I still think it should be possible to say "get as much as you can off the disk and then get all information regarding this package out of the database". Modifying postrm to say "exit 0" works, but a dkpg option would be nice, too.
I'll file an RFE bug. --To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org