I'm running sid.

I had that issue earlier, but then it went away for a bit... it's only in the last day or three that it's wanted to uninstall gnome... so I haven't been running it, because I don't particularly want gnome to go bye-bye. The upgrade vs. dist-upgrade is pretty much exactly what I needed... I'm kind of surprised that synaptic doesn't allow for that option. Hmmm... <poke poke> Ah, I see, it's in the preferences; it was set to "smart upgrade" not "default upgrade" or "always ask"... that's probably it right there.

So, that seems to be the source of confusion... thanks!