Someone mentioned this on irc, and I had a possible solution. Dpkg gets the file list for the new, updated pkg, and compares that to the installed list. Any files not in the new pkg, get renamed to <file>.dpkg.#, and it is these backups that get removed after the pkg is fully unpacked.
The rename is done in the current directory of the file, so you shouldn't have symlink probs, unless the admin used a symlink on just one file, but in that case, you are screwed anyways. Adam
