debian vs ubuntu

[Scott R. Ehrlich]

A couple of years ago when playing around with the various major versions 
of Linux - CentOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and the BSDs (granted BSD is 
its own category), when performing an application update, something would 
break along the way.   How to fix?  CentOS and Fedora had no obvious/easy 
way out I could find, so I'd end up reinstalling.   Ubuntu actually 
provided a Broken option under Synaptic.  I used the Broken option, and my 
system reverted back to pre-broken status.  I was sold.

Now, a couple of years later, I'm upgrading from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 
desktop, using dist-upgrade path.

I'd like to find out from Debian and Ubuntu users if Debian offers the 
same upgrade options as Ubuntu?   Also, which distro seems to offer more 
current versions of applications (Firefox, etc)?   Ubuntu seems to prefer 
their hacked helper (ubufox) to make Firefox really happy.  Does Debian 
keep that kind of control over their distro?

I've also found Ubuntu strongly prefers their hacked version of video 
drivers (such as NVidia) vs the manufacturer's-supplied ones.  How is 
Debian in this arena?

It has taken me almost 24 hours to upgrade Ubuntu - I am getting prompted 
if I want to keep or replace certain apps or config files (samba, apache, 
among others), and the installer cannot continue until I acknowledge.  I 
would have thought the Ubuntu team would have made this completely 
transparent and trivial by now.

Does Debian offer the same "Broken" option to help a user unbreak an 
update that went bad?  Don't see updates go bad much these days (at least 
for me), but they can still happen, and it is nice to know the OS can 
handle much of it.

So how does Debian stack up vs Ubuntu for 32-bit desktop use these days?
Keeping up on applications (latest and security patched, unbreaking of 
updates, etc)?

I'm not a developer - more of a knowledgeable user.

Thanks.

Scott