> "this lower level tool provides more potential for mucking up your system; e.g., accidentally trying to remove an essential package; I believe dpkg wouldn't ask for confirmation right?"

Did you read anything I wrote? I specifically mentioned that dpkg would not remove an essential package...twice:

In my initial reply I demonstrated that dpkg would not remove an essential package:

  root@fw:~# dpkg -P coreutils 
  dpkg: error processing coreutils (--purge):
   This is an essential package - it should not be removed.
  Errors were encountered while processing:
   coreutils

And in my second reply I simply restated what my example had demonstrated:

"Furthermore some packages are so crucial (ie: essential) that dpkg does not even bother checking dependencies before erroring out."

> "The only time I've been forced to use dpkg in the past ten years was when the system was seriously messed up e.g. in the middle of a failed upgrade."

Just because the only time you had to use dpkg was when your system was messed up does not mean that dpkg is likely to mess up your system. Its like saying that the emergency room causes life threatening trauma because the only time I was seriously injured I had to go to the emergency room.

Does anyone know if there a name for this kind of fallacious reasoning? It seems like an amalgamation of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" and "cum hoc ergo propter hoc."