I mean, most people don't have that many problems with Ubuntu and Debian boxes, right? My first thought is, what is the author doing that most people aren't? Maybe stop doing that?
I don't think the author is alone in having problems with Ubuntu and Debian. There are numerous forums, mailing lists, bug trackers, and so forth which are full of reports of people encountering problems like the author describes.
Many of those users, especially if they're new to Linux, probably just end up abandoning Linux instead of talking about their problems in more detail like the author did.
Even experienced Linux users are moving on. I used Ubuntu and Debian, among other Linux distros, daily for many years. But I too started noticing quality problems. So I've moved to OS X. It isn't perfect, but it generally gives a much better experience than I was getting with Linux, while still letting me use much of the software I was accustomed to using.
I can only speak from experience but the initramfs system seems to be a lot more "fragile" (?) recently? I've had upgrades result in being dropped to the "emergency" shell and not be able to mount the rootfs, like what the author experienced.
I may end up going back to running without an initramfs, at least for VMs that are going to last for more than a day.
The kinds of problems he's reporting are more consistent with hardware failure that exhibits only after a reboot, or with misconfiguration of his software, than defects in the OS boot mechanism.
I have a lot of respect for Linas (I used his Extrusion code to make the glextrusion xscreensaver) but I think in this case he's doing things to his machines that cause these problems, and it's not usually debian or ubuntu's fault.
Many of those users, especially if they're new to Linux, probably just end up abandoning Linux instead of talking about their problems in more detail like the author did.
Even experienced Linux users are moving on. I used Ubuntu and Debian, among other Linux distros, daily for many years. But I too started noticing quality problems. So I've moved to OS X. It isn't perfect, but it generally gives a much better experience than I was getting with Linux, while still letting me use much of the software I was accustomed to using.