I'm sick of problems with STSADM and MAKECAB
You tell them to do things and they partly do it. My gripe with MakeCab is that the files in the CBA archive (or wsp) don't use the same date stamp as what Windows Explorer uses. Building a DLL and as part of a post-build step you're putting the new DLL into the CAB file? Wouldn't it surprise you when the DLL in the new CAB file has a date weeks or months old? It sure surprised me! Leads to all kinds of confusion as to whether or not you are about to deploy the correct code.
As for STSADM - why doesn't it deploy from a batch file correctly? I'm running the fairly standard set of RETRACTSOLUTION, DELETESOLUTION, ADDSOLUTION, DEPLOYSOLUTION commands with the EXECADMSVCJOBS sprinkled throughout in the correct places. I'm deploying to a single server. Why would it fail to delete the old stuff or worse yet, delete the old stuff and not deploy the new stuff? So frustrating! This annoys me so much b/c the "admin" can't figure out what happened and so I have to handle the deployment every time - I can't just say "Double-click this batch file and you'll be upgraded".
[I originally wrote this post weeks ago but it hit me again recently so I felt the rage all over again - hence the post]