Agree, some distros just want to release (to keep release schedule, to keep cools names, to look updated, to show up in news, etc) and yet keep releasing known broken software. They are destroying the trust users have on those distros every time one user have a working system, see a new release announcement and try to update to that latest release, only to find that its system doesn't work any more.
the excuse that users must read the release notes is really a bad excuse, many time they don't really warn about the problems user will find, but instead talk about the "cool new features" and how good it will be. So instead of showing that things will not work, they almost hide it, after all, a release is a checkpoint of a working system.
If its broken, call it BETA, ALPHA, whatever, not a RELEASE!
Slackware and Debian are great examples how things should work. Both try to release on schedule ( about twice a year on slackware, one a year to debian), but there is no release is there are known problems (unless its a very limited problem).. So slackware took 1 and half years to jump from 13.37 to 14 (the latest release) and debian took the same time to just freeze wheezy (the next release) and 6 month later it still isnt released.
Both distros are looked as very stable, they just work!
If anyone wants a more bleeding edge on those distros, they run the -current (slackware) or sid (debian) and fix things when its broken... but releases are always stable!!