It turns out that the problem is that the section of ubuntu-desktop (or kubuntu-desktop for that matter) is "base" in the /var/lib/dpkg/status file. When apt calculates the new recommends this causes confusion as apt will currently only consider recommends for section "metapackages" as ImportantDeps().
It turns out that the problem is that the section of ubuntu-desktop (or kubuntu-desktop for that matter) is "base" in the /var/lib/ dpkg/status file. When apt calculates the new recommends this causes confusion as apt will currently only consider recommends for section "metapackages" as ImportantDeps().