Feature request: better debug messages

So, I've been trying to restore a PITR backup, and I've been having
problems. But by far the biggest problem I've been having is that
postgres doesn't give me *any* clue as to what I'm doing wrong. All
that happens is that pg_ctl will report 'postmaster starting', the log
file will say 'LOG: logger shutting down', and that's it. So I thought
upping the debug level of postgres would help, by adding a -o '-d 5' to
the pg_ctl command line. The log file that gets spit out in this case
is attached. What is noticeable is how unhelpfull it is.

So this is my request: When something happens to cause postgres to exit
early, have some sort of debug message giving some clue as to what is
wrong. For example 'parse error in recovery.conf' would be sufficient.

Thanks.

Brian