The reason I wanted apturl and an aptstore was to keep it simple for those who might find synaptic a little overwhelming. 
Not to get too far off topic.. but:
What I had in mind was to use synaptic as it is used in the new (posted in packaging section today) update-notifier with the option enabled to hide the main window in synaptic.. all the user will see of synaptic is the confirmation box that shows what packages are going to be installed, upgraded, etc. (the dialog you get when you press the "apply" button in synaptic). The user also gets the benefit of the more useful / informative progress dialogs in synaptic... the rest of the script would be essentially unchanged.
If you would like to see it in action, install the update notifier script I posted
HERE, start it, click on the taskbar icon, select change settings, then select the option to hide the main synaptic window when updating... downgrade a package or two in synaptic (..flash plugin can be forced to an older version for testing purposes), then have update-notifier reload package updates, and then allow it to update flash-plugin with synaptic; the main synaptic window should remain hidden.
It really does a pretty good job of hiding the complexity, but still gives some useful feedback.. It might even make the transition to synaptic easier as the user will have been exposed to the installation dialogs in synaptic. The other advantage of using synaptic with a hidden main window is that if the user later wants to undo changes, everything is recorded in synaptic's history... I don't think you can get that very easily with apt-get!
