I must admit i haven't touched Debian as a Desktop Operating System for many years but i appreciate the Desktop Experience that is available with Ubuntu out of the box very very much. All _my_ stuff just works (hello binary blob drivers at Debian?), most stuff nowadays has those private package archives, yet i still don't need to run debian unstable to get relatively recent software. I know i have 6 months until a new version comes along, as opposed to many years of waiting. I admit i frequently reinstall Ubuntu (like every 1 or 2 releases), but that's no hazzle while keeping /home. I still get to test btrfs (changed back to ext4 one release afterwards), i still can screw around with the system a little bit.. nahh.. i don't see me going back to Debian on the Desktop.. Ubuntu may be only a redesign of if, but they make it working nicely on my laptop, the community is huge..
I must admit i wouldn't want to sit down an afternoon with Debian to figure out why my graphics is screwed or my Wifi isn't working, etc. Not anymore, it was fine 10 years ago, ,not 2013..
That said, i'd choose Debian as a server OS any time!