Old Toad? -- Rebuild iPhoto Library and lose NOTHING!

Hi,
Any help will be very much appreciated (I'm particularly hoping the old toad will be hopping over to this thread)...
I'm running iPhoto 6 and have been using iPhoto since version 3.0. I have a library of about 10,000 photos which I have meticulously organised and catalogued. I don't use albums, but eveything is organised by film rolls and every photo has keywords (names of those photographed, which I access via smart-albums), ratings, comments, and titles.
My iPhoto library, though working perfectly, is a complete mess. I can manually see dozens of duplicates (often whole folders) and it's driving me barmy...
In iTunes, I can simply copy all of my music files to a backup disc, delete all iTunes related stuff from my HD, then re-import. I lose star ratings, albums and playcounts but my careful cataloguing is preserved and I have a pristine library.
I have a feeling that old versions of iPhoto didn't allow such re-importing. How about now? Is there a way to just save the photo files, trash everything, and re-import. What would be lost? It would be a disaster of epic proportions if I lost (a) titles, (b) comments, (c) *most importantly* keywords...
I don't care about albums, and smart albums are easy to re-create. Is what I am suggesting possible?
Thanks in advance,
Steve.

Steven:
The _2 is generated when a photo with the same name is added to a roll that already has a file by that name. If your camera has the option to turn off resetting the numbering process on each new set of photos I suggest you do so. That will avoid duplicate image file issues that can crop up when trying to export photos to a folder.
As far as the duplicates, the thumbnails don't take up much room and the modified files are only when you edit one. If you want to regain that space just do a Revert to Original and the modified file will be deleted. Many of the modified files are portrait orientated images that have been taken by a camera with the auto-rotate option. There's no way around it unless you turn off the option, upload to the desktop and then physically rotate with a 3rd party application before importing into iPhoto.
What with the low cost of external FW hard drives these days it's not expensive to have a decent sized backup drive that you can store older or not immediately needed photos in a separate library and then use iPhoto Library Manager to move between the two and copy photos between them without losing the keywords, comments, etc. Or you can use iPhoto in its alias mode with the source files on the external HD and only a very small library folder on your boot drive. I have 27,000 image files on my external HD and the library folder for it is only 1.7G. See these Tutorials for more about the alias type of library.,
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB file backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

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