You make a good point about 10.10. Lucid (10.04) actually has a longer shelf
life that Maverick. However, it is a tradeoff as you are stuck in time
(April, 2010) for 3 years. One possible solution for users is to enable
backports. This will keep the stability of 10.04, but enable you to get
upgrades of major packages such as OpenOffice. Without that you will still
be using what you have 2 1/2 years from now. I don't know about you, but
that prospect does not appeal to me. That is a long time in the computer
world.