Upgrade to Edgy fails ("Cannot remove /usr/X11R6/bin directory") if Opera is installed

While upgrading from Ubuntu 6.06.1 to Ubuntu 6.10, with Opera installed from the dapper-commercial repository, I received an error message: "This upgrade requires that the /usr/X11R6/bin directory be removed and replaced with a symlink. An attempt was made to do so, but it failed, most likely because the directory is not yet empty. You must move the files that are currently in the directory out of the way so that the installation can complete. If you like, you may move them back after the symlink is in place."

This is a very well-written error message, but expecting people to follow these instructions themselves is still far beyond the realm of most people who use computers. One possible solution is for the installation process to create the new directory, then move the contents of /usr/X11R6/bin/ to that new directory, *then* replace /usr/X11R6/bin with a symlink.

Furthermore, the instructions don't actually work. Even after moving the opera/ subdirectory out of the way, the dist-upgrade still fails, with a message like "trying to overwrite /user/X11R6/bin, which is also used by package opera". And if I use Synaptic to try uninstalling Opera first, it wants me to uninstall half the world at the same time (including gdm, gksu, update-notifier, and xserver-xorg).