I started this afternoon submitting bugs against packages which print verbose output in their maintainer scripts. The future that Debian must take is to fully support debconf. To further this goal I will continue submitting patches to any package which prompts the user in a maintainer script.
If any maintainer would like a) to join in the effort b) me to debconf their package or need help doing so please mail me. With debconf, Debian can have its own kickstart, or unattended installs, and all the other little things that people have been asking for years to have Debian support. This also means that companies using Debian to not have to rip apart packages because they ask too many questions. As for my patches to make maintainer scripts quiet, the days where the messages were useful have passed. They now whiz by during install leaving users wondering if they missed something. Or they scare the newbie. I watched an install yesterday where a package ran a tex function and echoed all the output to screen -- you know what tex output looks like to the unsuspecting? With task packages, users do not always know exactly what packages are being installed. I am not asking for Debian to coddle newbies. But the little things like package installation output can be easily changed.