I'm sorry to hear that Debian OpenLDAP packages are in a such bad state, but if, as it seems, there no distribution getting OpenLDAP right (I heard complaints also about RedHat), then I start thinking that something is not working fine, at least on the user end of OpenLDAP distribution.
The OpenLDAP foundation has zero input or control into how distribution providers build their OpenLDAP packages. Thus the end users are at the mercy of the distribution provider's decisions on building OpenLDAP, which are quite often extremely flawed.
--Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Sr. Member of Technical Staff Zimbra, Inc A Division of VMware, Inc. -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration