In the end I just rm -rf'd the files, as suggested by others on this list. I was initially concerned about that simple approach, as I figured that many postgres conf files will still point to that deleted area - but as postgres will not run again until I do an initdb -D command, it (should) goes to follow that those conf files will then be correctly updated.
Yeah, I understand your concern, and I do agree. On installation from packages on Debian/Ubuntu-like, you should keep with the cluster management tools provided, like pg_createcluster instead of initdb, pg_ctlcluster instead of pg_ctl, pg_dropcluster instead of rm, and so on.
Regards,
--
Matheus de Oliveira Analista de Banco de Dados Dextra Sistemas - MPS.Br nível F! www.dextra.com.br/postgres