OK, I've attached two new patches.

test_minidom.second.patch - Changes "confirm" to "assert_" or "assertEquals", breaks multi-line assertions into many one-line assertions, adds convenience methods "assertSameNode" and "assertNotSameNode", etc.  Also replaces the Node.allnodes test with gc-based test and adds a few calls to unlink().

expatbuilder.second.patch - Fixes the test failure discovered by the new gc testing.

File Added: test_minidom.second.patch