[may]

Igor's point about distros trying to "own" 20K packages is well-taken; it's simply not possible.

In my own life the 'solution' I have found is to use FreeBSD; I get a stable, well-maintained core with a sharp distinction between core, userland and third-party (the ports system).

I have found the ports system to be a lightweight, agile alternative to GNU/Linux package managers:

When you install FreeBSD you are left with a kernel, standard UNIX command-line utilities and everything you need to hammer the system into a finely-honed tool.

Right now, I'm using it exclusively on my servers because I'm willing to accept the trade-offs of Ubuntu (beta 12.04 on my dev box, XUbuntu 11.10 on my netbook) on the desktop; a little instability and fully-automated updates is OK in exchange for not having to fiddle with graphics drivers, sound, Flash, etc.