Create a Standard solution for "duplicate" handling of leads, problems, contacts etc in Web CRM when we redo status'

We have talked about relating custom status' to standard status' that mean something in our systsem

e.g. unqualified, qualified-in, qualified-out, won, lost (and similar for problems ... and for contacts perhaps we don't need anything so complex just active/left/deleted)

But, in all cases it would be great to have a clear option for "duplicate" which then automatically creates a relationship to the other record. I have seen several in-house problems closed-duplicate where the relationship has been setup (so helpful) and many where it isn't (really unhelpful!)