Grub2 almost does what I want

[Richard Owlett]

I'm making a series of almost identical installs of Debian 
Squeeze (6.0.5)
[Grub menu identifies itself as version 1.98+20100804+squeeze1]

Using the Debian installer and Grub with their defaults 
leaves me me with problems with the Grub menu for boot options.

The latest installation goes to the top of the displayed 
list and is also selected as the default OS to boot.
That is unsatisfactory as the first OS will will always be 
closest to a standard install - i.e. most likely to run.
Also, when I have an install that I don't like, I would like 
to eliminate it by simply deleting that partition and go on 
to my next try.

Because all the installs are from the same DVD set, all 
lines on the Grub menu are nearly identical. I'd like to 
replace the kernel information with meaningful text.

Each install adds an associated "recovery mode" option. I'd 
like to eliminate those. For what I'm doing, if "recovery" 
required it is time to wipe disk and start over again.

Do I have any options except following full manual edit of 
grub.cfg?
[my reading of 
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html suggests I 
don't.]

TIA