For joe Average end-user? Nope.

For someone developing /tweaking/hacking at the core system? Quite possibly. I can't predict everyone's needs.

There's no reason it shouldn't. apt-get upgrade will not, as a general rule, install stuff that needs new packages (apt-get install <package> will install any new packages required by <packages> though, if you use that command to upgrade an already installed package). apt-get dist-upgrade is for this. Ideally apt-get dist-upgrade should have done what the SSU tried to do.

However, apt-get dist-upgrade hasn't worked properly on any internet tablet due to repository configurations [or rather, the packages therein and their dependencies], it's nothing wrong with the command itself. But due to how repos are set up an apt-get dist-upgrade tends to install things you don't want (maybe, for example, packages meant for a scratchbox development enviornment) and remove packages you want to keep.