Do a bit more defensive programming

[vmbrasseur]

For example:

def create_dir(basedir, identifier):
  newdir = basedir + "/" + identifier
  if os.path.exists(newdir):
    verboseout(newdir + " already exists. Not creating")
  else:
    verboseout(" Going to create" + newdir)
    os.makedirs(newdir) #XXX confirm this worked
    verboseout(newdir + " created")
  return newdir

There are several places in the code where some try/catch action ought to happen to make things a bit more robust.