There is, of course, a chance that these .deb packages won't pan out the way that I expect and all this excitement will burst like a huge bubble.
However:
A. At least there's *some* hope, whereas I knew what I have been doing it doomed to have to be repeated over and over, and
B. They're extremely simple packages and the one I spot checked looked like what I expected
C. I am using the code from the package that does have some .deb packages, so presumably this code produced some of the packages I've been using all along
So I'm still feeling optimistic.