While I do not always use straight Debian, I am a HUGE fan of Debian based systems, and I periodically like to try out the Debian netinst. You are right. I would nominate Debian as the MOST IMPROVED distro in terms of ease of installation. It is a bit chatty compared to some of the quick, easy to install versions, but other than that minor inconvenience, it is just about as easy as most of them, and it is far more flexible than 95% of the distributions out there, giving ground only to the source and do it yourself varieties, which are far more complicated than Debian to set up, though they do provide the ultimate in flexibility. The ground that Debian strikes is in between and a very good balance for anyone requiring flexibility.

That said, I have two desktop and three laptop systems and I have sidux installed, along with many other distros, on them. sidux is an implementation based upon Debian Sid, and it really tames Sid, particularly if you add on the smxi script, which makes maintaining the system a trivial exercise. I call it Debian Sid on mood stabilizers and steroids.

If you want something really easy, very stable, and much more conservative, go instead with SimplyMEPIS. The 8.0 release is now in Beta test - the fourth Beta. Warren Woodford produces stable builds. Early builds may lack some hardware support, but the packages work perfectly. Defect counts are low. With Beta 4, hardware support is sharply improving. SimplyMEPIS 8.0 is based upon the upcoming release of Debian Lenny and it is aready, even in test form, a superb distribution, worth a look for any tester, but also good enough to be usable already for every day use.

If you want something lighter, give the MEPIS derived antiX M7.5 a try. It uses Debian Testing, which is Lenny, so it, too, is quite stable, very fast, and it offers a choice of Fluxbox or IceWM as the two default window managers to reduce the footprint.

All three of these have Debian foundations and are of high quality and I do not hesitate to recommend any of them. It all depends on what you need. If you want more control, then opt for the real thing, Debian, using the netinst. You cannot go wrong with any of these fine alternatives.