Debian is very much one ad hoc fix after another, to an incredible degree really. Go dive into the source and patches and you’ll see how much duct tape there really is holding things together. What’s so great about Debian though is it effectively hides all that pain from you (most of the time).
Get this wrong, stuff breaks regularly, and one ad-hoc fix follows another, forever.
Get this right, and everything Just Works™ (generally).
Debian is very good in this regard (along with the BSDs, I'd say).