The pulse stuff isn't very out-of-date in the current version... I'm getting 0.9.21-1 installed, 0.9.21-3 in squeeze. I really think there should be no reason why any apps would require an update at this point. I tested installing eric with "--no-install-recommends" and I didn't see libpulse0 in the list of apps to be upgraded.

EDIT: What I'd really like to see is Maemo 5's flash plugin hacked into Debian, the way Stskeeps did for the Diablo version (the version Easy Debian has been using).