I read the code again and I'm pretty sure that the reason was that madbomber has a depency to certain version of madbomber-data (madbomber-data (= 0.2.5-3maemo4)).

Depending to certain version of the base system would break SSU's, but depending to certain version of 3rd party package should be OK as long as it's comparable to madbomber-data (ie not a library).

I hope that the "the 3rd party package policy" is documented once it's done. It wouldn't hurt if it was discussed even before it was done.