Yeah, dist-upgrade can break things if repositories aren't kept in consistent state always. Before doing apt-get dist-upgrade (if you really need to), try doing apt-get upgrade, check which packages are "kept back", and before confirming apt-get dist-upgrade check always what is being removed. Make sure it doesn't remove half of your system or any essential packages in the process

It's good for rolling distros like Debian testing for example and I use it on desktop all the time, with some reservations though (as described above).