It's a matter of preference really.
I switched away from Mint after the Cassandra edition.
Went to Xubuntu. But then... mint started getting better in my
opinion. V6 Mint was great, and V7 even better than that.

Ok, now for the logical part of it.. without Ubuntu 9.10 as a base,
Mint 8 would be based on something else. Consider Mint to be a
customisation of Ubuntu. Just about any tutorial, tweak, hack or
solution that works for Ubuntu will work for Mint. Love me some green themes!