I also had problems upgrading bash. I think that the new libreadlineg2 is the source of the problem. bash and the new one both link with libreadline.so.2 So, you may not install the new libreadline because it's overwriting the older one.
The problem must have already been resolved, because the new libreadline package is no more available at ftp.debian.org --------------- Cyrille Lefranc Grenoble France