> it's an either/or situation (i.e. no way of satisfying both parties
Actually, it isn't -- there's an easy way of giving users a choice, and two people have suggested it already (debconf). This seems to be the most Debianish way to handle it - technologically superior, and avoids punishing one set of users at the expense of the other (even if it is a small minority, you don't care about that when you're in it :-)
