That doesn’t make sense. The whole point of having a funcional “app store” is so you pick and choose what you want. Pre-installed apps are only good for the supplier, not the customer. Debian is user centric.
Missing first steps:
You hit the nail on the head here. I don’t think it’ll ever be on Debian. They’re happy to let forked distros adapt to a desktop centric model and this doesn’t make sense for their stated goals. So beginners will have to find guides online to orient themselves, which isn’t bad but it’s a friction point.
Flatpaks not being the default app installation method
Holy cow did you miss the mark here. Having the option of flatpacks is good, but replacing your package manager for it is bananas at this point. Still a lot to be developed before it’s a smooth experience. Password managers not taking to browsers, etc.
The biggest issue is that Debian would cease to be Debian, though. You can’t have a stable, unchanging distro if you don’t use it. I don’t even know how to begin, this is a face to face conversation that needs to be had.
Too old OS in general: By using 3 year old DE variants,
3 years are impossible but all the Ubuntu LTS based distros on a 2 year cycle is fine? Again, that’s a feature. For the apps you need a newer version, go for a flatpack. If you you need to have everything shiny and new, then stable / LTS distros are not for you. Go to a rolling release. Can’t have both.
Does everything too well:
Odd take. That’s probably the reason people suggest it in the first place. Put an asterisk on it and add a note that informs the newbies that it’s not a desktop-first distro, even though it works great as one.
Stability is NOT reliability!: If you mess up your system, there are no recommended-by-default safety measures, like there are on Mint (Timeshift backup) or Suse (Snapper rollback).
Very valid. Snapshots are a game changer and just because it’s harder to break your system doesn’t mean you wouldn’t benefit from it. I don’t think it’ll ever be a default in Debian for the same reason as the lack of a welcome tutorial. It’s not the focus.
All in all, I think your latest post and flowchart is really good. Lots of weird takes here though.