Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if you set out to find trouble, you're almost certain to find it.
If I run a search on "8003 error" with Google, and I get say 5 million hits, it's easy to think that the problem is widespread. It doesn't take into account the say 20 million people who've never had the problem and just fail to show up on random message boards and say, "Hey, guess what guys? I didn't get the 8003 error today! Matter of fact, everything's running great! No problems whatsoever! Same as yesterday, the day before that, and all the way back to when I first switched this thing on!"
So it may SEEM like there's a large number of people affected, but in reality you may be one of only a small number of people to ever run into that problem. Meaning Apple is devoting it's limited developer time resources towards fixing larger issues that affect more than a handful of people.
Just as an alternative hypothesis to yours.
Having tried a variety of the "fixes" including the power down hold shift power up, repairing disc utilities/permissions, hold down option, command/opt/rt arrow key in "empty trash etc with some successes in the past I have found to my horror NONE worked recently after having installed a new HD. The problem is definitely linked to Apple software (operating Snow Leopard 10.6.
via that inflexible "Time Machine" option and the WD 1 TB portable HD back up.
My solution - erase the disc of the portable HD. Voila was able to empty trash. Then I backed up my system again.No problems - fingers crossed.
Tis a pity Apple have done virtually nothing about this for the last several years given the number of error 8003 problems on the discussion forums.

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