Conclusion of that exchange (sorry for being a little slow to understand everything the 3 of you wrote):

This:

    (prin1 name)
    (princ " is ")
    (princ (if (memq (aref status 0) '(?a ?e ?i ?o ?u)) "an " "a "))
    (princ status)
    (princ " package.\n\n")

Can reasonably be replaced by this:

    (let (sentence (format "The status of package %1$S is `%2$s'.\n\n" name status)))
    (princ sentence))

Is that correct ?