After Kai Hendry 'nuked' his Debian unstable system by a simple upgrade, he decided to put up a wiki page which lists the status of unstable. An interesting page you might consult before upgrading your system. I have had my share of unstable problems too, but after checking the Bug Tracking System I often quickly found a solution. Of course, you could install 'apt-listbugs' too, which will print a summary of all RC-bugs before each upgrade.
Oh yes, I've encountered 3l33t leenuks idiots on IRC too, on both camps (Fedora and Debian), but luckily there are still lots of people willing to help you out.