Thanks for the assurances. BTW, here is the suggested fix for the crash that I experienced:
Line 45 of django/middleware/common.py, change: if settings.APPEND_SLASH and ... to: if settings.APPEND_SLASH and (len(old_url[1]) > 0) and ... Without that guard statement the very next clause of the if statement can cause a crash in an edge condition where the old_url is the empty string (which I proved can occur in rare circumstances such as bad or incomplete rewrite rules.)