I agree that the issue of older versions not unpacking things made by newer versions is not an important bug. I added that as an FYI.
I do think this bug qualifies as RC even though there is a workaround. The workaround is non-trivial and requires Debian Developers to research the issue for a process that is normally entirely transparent. Tools like pristine-tar become much less valuable if they introduce their own restrictions to the packaging process. It changes "use pristine-tar, and things will work better" into "use pristine-tar and you'll have to learn some new workarounds, but it'll probably save you time".
