linux-image won't install (again)

[Michael Hipp]

A new kernel was issued yesterday to fix some exploits. But it won't 
install:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
[snip]
The following packages have been kept back:
   linux-image-2.6-386 linux-restricted-modules-2.6-386
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

So I tried installing them manually (it worked before):

$ sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6-386 linux-restricted-modules-2.6-386
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
   linux-restricted-modules-2.6-386: Depends: 
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.8.1-5-386 but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

I went to /var/cache/apt/archives and deleted the packages thinking that 
might help the "broken packages" problem but no change. So how do I get 
this to install.?

Low key rant: Every time a kernel update is released, it's the same 
thing like this - it won't install without alot of manual intervention. 
I'm in the process of deploying Ubuntu on all my servers. When I get 
lots of these things running this will become a real pain real fast. Is 
there no way a kernel upgrade can be packaged such that it will just 
install like everything else without so much ratkilling?
End of low key rant and apologies for being a whiny baby.

Any help appreciated.

Michael