Sometimes knowing something works is a very good thing. If old technology sticks around, chances are it works, and just because there is something newer, faster, and bigger, doesn't mean its a better choice.
I'm talking about stability, and Etch is turning out to be a really stable platform. Its about halfway through its life cycle, as I understand it, but Debian has just released a point upgrade to 2.6.24. That is so cool!
I've actually been compiling my own kernels for use with Etch, specifically with the OpenVZ 2.6.24 patches. So far, so good! I've only got it running on one machine, and it works fine so far.