On the surface it does seem like a bad idea. However in practice I've found the changes Debian apply often seem to be very well thought through. I like to explore different Linux distros but I always keep coming back to Debian because how they do things just makes sense.
Debian Vim has a sane default which means my Debian .vimrc is only two lines, one to import the Debian defaults and another to set my four-tab settings. Debian Apache has the very useful a2{dis,en}{mod,site} utilities and a standard way of configuring sites in /etc/apache2/sites-available which makes scripting Apache configs very easy to do. GNOME is set up out of the box with sane defaults which means everything just works.
This even extends to how different packages work together. For example Debian Smokeping simply adds an Apache site config which I can then a2enconf and I straight away have Smokeping working with minimal fuss.
Going from Debian to Arch et al is a exercise in figuring out why things doesn't work as it should and finding that it's because the upstream code actually has poor defaults and it was Debian all along that applied their own judgements and came up with better defaults.
Debian also has unattended-updates which is a fantastic tool. And that blends in well with their very conservative packaging approach -- I can enable unattended upgrades with the confidence that Debian won't push through a breaking change. I would never use a similar function in other distros -- especially rolling distros.
No hate to Arch, Fedora, et al. I loved learning the in and outs of Linux playing around with Arch -- I think Arch is a fantastic distro for learning the nuts and bolts of Linux. Fedora was an interesting experience, and I decided after a while it wasn't for me. But for my daily driver, I was very, very happy to migrate back to Debian stable. Debian stable is literally a distro that just works.
> Debian also has unattended-updates which is a fantastic tool
I very much dislike this tool. It gives itself the privilege to potentially restart any part of your system. I've seen it restart machines on GCP because it installed a new kernel. It might be fine for home desktop use, but turn it off elsewhere.
You can edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades to make it behave any way you like. I believe it is explicitely suggested when you install unattended-upgrades that you should edit that file to suit your environment.
Mmhhmm, yes I’m sure you Know Better™ but maybe don’t complain when you do this to yourself, and then it makes your life hard?