I've used more than my fair share of distros, since I like to tinker. Right now, I using Fedora, CentOS, and Debian Stable on a few of my machines. But, I have yet to find a distro that is superior to all others in every way...which, IMO, is one of the best things about GNU/Linux, since what you require is probably not the same as what I require. Flexibility is king. And keeping /home separate from / has been a lifesaver for me on more than one occasion, not just for ease of installing/switching distros, but for general data and system security/stability as well. Just curious, what do you mean by "resort" to my method? Do you keep everything on a single default partition set up by an installer, just because it's the easy way to go?