I think dselect is fine. It gives you an overview of everything, so you can decide what to install. The only problem is that if you deselect sdomething you get conflicts with other packeges further down the list, which you don't even know about yet. You can start selecting from the end, but it has the disadvantage of starting with the least important things.
Wouldn't it be possible to delay the conflict resolution to the moment the user finishes with selecting? This would aavoid many conflicts.
