I think "cutting" and "bleeding" edge refers to the packages and how up-to-date they are and not how quick a system is, right?

Otherwise, Windows 7 would be like fountain-of-blood-like-bleeding. At least on my PC. ;)

Still not sure what the point of "cutting edge" is, then, if it's not faster, much less stable, and prone to not even boot. Doesn't sound very useful to me.

I think it's for the people who want to tinker with the latest stuff or have a special hardware setup, like NVIDIA Optimus for example, which is a pretty new feature from the latest kernel.

For stability, I'd always go with something like Debian or a Ubuntu LTS release. CentOS is also great for stability, but I think Ubuntu/Debian have more "Desktopy" features. I love my Kubuntu 12.04 for this. ;)

You could also just install a newer upstream kernel (very easy) on your stable system.

Other problem would be xorg-drivers (they work partly in userpace).
Almost all big distros support Bumblebee for Optimus though.

Debian example (notice that Wheezy will become the new stable this night):
http://wiki.debian.org/Bumblebee

Well, I like to tinker too, but I also need to have my computer working when I need it...I can't really afford to have the system go down and waste all the time fixing it again. Features are nice, but stability is critical.

Exactly, that's why I have a multi-boot setup with Kubuntu LTS and CentOS for super-stability and a rolling-release distro on a different hard drive for the tinkering.

Another good way to test out new things which could break your system would be to install a distro in VirtualBox. That way, if you break something, it does not affect your working system at all.

ARCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cool: