you're in a maze of twisty passages, all alike

I'm so frustrated with trying to get my test machine up to date that I'm 
about to give up and wait for the next CD build. I'm wondering if I'm 
missing an easier route. Here's what's happening:

1. Install from beta2 CDs a few weeks ago. Install every package.
2. Run up2date-nox -u every night.

However, this only worked for a while. Then a variety of up2date 
problems stop it working, with the result that I'm now many hundreds of 
megabytes out of date. The cycle is now:

    * Run up2date-nox -u. This will fail either at some dependency check
      or later during the download (it seems to loop getting the same
      package).
    * 'Fix' the problem. Right now I simply rpm -e the problem package.
    * Try again. This pretty much always fails with the 'abuse of
      service' message. The one that says it can't appear with normal
      use... Retrying has no effect since every use is blocked with an
      abuse failure.

All I'm trying to do is keep a machine up to date with the current full 
list of packages. Is there a simpler way?

/dh