You REALLY should upgrade your version of cabal-install. 0.14.0 is way out of date and sometimes old versions can generate install failures. Also, when you blow away your local packages, don't delete the .cabal directory. The vast majority of the time you only need to delete .ghc.
Also, please mark this question as resolved so it doesn't sit around as unanswered. If you want, you can post your own answer and accept it.