My apologies for not getting back to you regarding this bug sooner, I really just sort of forgot about the report. I've had a partial solution to this wishlist bug for months now.
My partial solution is "apt-busted.py". As the names suggests, it's a thrown-together solution that tests for the existence of each file every installed package claims to have installed. If packages are found to have missing files, the tester will offer to reinstall the missing packages.
The "v0.1" directory contains a working "apt-busted.py" that will test and reinstall any packages that are missing files. I'm sure there are still some false-positive situations, but they affect a very limited number of packages (less than 1% of all packages in my tests). Packages to exclude manually can be discovered by running the script again immediately after choosing to reinstall. The false-positives can further be reduced (probably halved again, or reduced to 0) by running as root.
The "dev" directory contains an in-process rewrite of apt-busted.py that may or may not actually ever get finished. Just don't know if I have the time to design it prettily.
This program requires the "wajig" package to be installed.
Thanks,
Nick Daly
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