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I don't know why people focus so much on "default" desktop environments. No desktop is more supported than another one,

But in the long run, a default desktop will be more thoroughly tested than a non-default. This is less true for debian than ubuntu, but I'd guess there's still some effect.

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In the end, the one that will be more tested is of course the with the most users (higher popcon in debian terms). Having a default value certainly will cause more installs, but there's no distribution-wide effort to make XFCE or Gnome more tested than KDE or ratpoison : every one is a first class citizen.

Gnome 2 had an unusually long run and it was only really used for less than a decade. So even optimistically, the long run doesn't matter past 9 years or so.

Then there are other packages which will never be less tested than a default because they have already been tested for a few years.

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