One problem with Stable is that hardware support is fixed in time because the kernels provided with Stable are never updated. When new releases take place every six months, as commercial GNU/Linux distros do, these fixed kernel versions are not a major problem. When new releases take place every few years, as Debian does, you end up with a situation where the Stable version is difficult or impossible to install on most comercially avaiable hardware.

Allowing newer kernel versions into point releases of Stable would largely eliminate these problems. Knoppix->debootstrap->wget->make-kpkg should not be the preferred way to install the current Debian Stable on a current x86 motherboard.

See ReleaseProposals for alternatives.