How to permanently increase aptitude upgrade points

[Panayiotis Karabassis <panayk@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I have a rather acute problem with aptitude. I am tracking wheezy and
very often, the resolver wants to remove half my system rather than
upgrade a couple of packages. These packages are not held back (aptitude
calls them "kept back"), even though they may be manually installed. Is
there a way to make aptitude prefer upgrading packages (staying in the
target distribution of course and only as needed) rather than remove them?

Upgrading these two packages by hand smooths everything out, so there's
no reason aptitude should not propose this first.

I am looking for two things: a) Increase the points a solution receives
for upgrading packages, to be at least more than the points for removing
them, and b) decrease the penalty for removing user-installed packages.

Thanks, best regards,
Panayiotis