Until there was a plea from Ian to stop the madness. At least for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu and Debian are working together now. Very much so.
Debian needed something to kick its rear into gear. Sarge just took longer than was tolerable. Ubuntu, may have a great idea, release the cream every six months. Let everything else catch up.
Ubuntu (at least for X86, X86_AMD64 and PPC)IMHO, is what Debian strives to be for all Architectures. Debian just got lost in the in-fighting and politics (it is still there and just as loud, but progress has a way of making it loud). I still use Sid for all of MY workstations, but I actually have an Ubuntu Server doing all of my test work, I build and tear down regularly on it. No, not re-install the OS. Re-Modeling.
Ubuntu does have many rough edges where Debian is nice and smooth... but Ubuntu is still young and many eager people are still wanting in. It will only get better, as long as they keep the eye on the ball. Calling it properly.
I will go out on a Limb and say that eventually Ubuntu will become the Debian "workstation" sub-project that has been kicked around for so long. Eventually may com sooner than you think.
So, at one point there was a divergence tendency in Ubuntu... due to the slow crawl of Debian. Debian is benefitting from Ubuntu more and more... which in turn benefits Ubuntu. More and more coop/collab-eration is making the Debian world a faster place.
On a sidenote, the Debian Infrastructure that needed to be made better (BTS/Archive Maint/Build Daemon Maint) all appear to be gettting cranked on. I see massive improvements (and construction pains sometimes) in the quality of info being collected and used and propagated by Debian.
And yes, I have a partial mirror of Debian for my stuff @ work. Home now no longer needs it as the Internet speeds have dramtically improved for me. Plus I now use the distributed canonical names for the Debian archives. err like this: ftp.us.debian.org for US mirrors... etc.