Desktop packages are way more finicky, obviously you didn't use it when they switched from devfs to udev (Between 0.7 and 0.8 releases, I've used it on-n-off for 5+ mo at a time since 0.4) as other major infrastructure overhauls like the PAM overhaul 3. Then again it wasn't cool to use arch at that time.
Since Judd Left the team the releases have gotten a bit lazier, they used to come out every 4 months now it's every year if that.
>As for development, its much better than debian- or redhat-based distros, because you don't ever have to install any -dev (or is it -devel?) packages, or go hunt down someone else's repo, because the version of a package you're using is obsolete and missing a feature you need, and won't be updated in mainline for another 4 months, if they even do it then.
Enjoy working on something moderately complex then, when it automatically updates it for you it'll fuck up your entire code base, so this happens several times a year and you're fucked. So unless you want to do maintenance as you're trying to actually code something rolling release isn't for you unless you like pulling hair. Not only that but culling of features happens much more than addition.
Also your lack of understanding of -dev packages shows you've never really used other distros, SuSE, Fedora, and Debian support group installations of packages such as development packages, development tools, IDE's etc, as well as wildcards in their package managers. So that's a very very moot point.
Not only that but SUSE which is designed with the programmer in mind has several different repos which contain different versions and the most up to date versions of packages.
Oh and by the way, that whole ROlling vs Staged release thing only shows a difference when major architecture is overhauled the lines in reality between those two release styles are blurring, especially with the expansion of OSS and people who work with it. Example: FC11 has kde 4.3 in updates-testing (not rawhide), it originally shipped with 4.2.2, and right now 4.2.4-rsomething is stable. Also Arch isn't as bleeding edge as it lets on some updates have been withheld for months because the developers are too lazy to recompile stuff.
Oh and if you don't have a package you do what you do in Arch, you either make a spec file for it and compile it yourself or go to 3rd party repos (Arch has like 1 actual 3rd party repo I think, unlike the 5-6 for Fedora).