Possibly. But the way I made it work for unhashed repositories, I enabled
--set-scripts-executable for record. That way, scripts get stored
executably in the pristine and will end up as executables in the test
working directory. This is, I presume, why the test works if you get
--set-scripts-executable.

And of course, if you want the test to work for trackdown, you also want
it to work for record.

The only case I can see, in which a file needs to be set executable during
the trackdown, is when a patch that removes a script is unapplied. In that
case, doesn't darcs eventually call the apply function for a hunk patch
that sets the file executable if it starts with '#!' and
--set-scripts-executable is given?

Reinier