How about instead of "your code sucks, but you shouldn't care", you had used "your code sucks, improve it a bit and commit in a better one".
Also, writing readable and understandable code is not a premature optimization.Quite the opposite. What you are "selling" is to write quite and dirty site and then just patch them up. It is a road to unmanaged and intentional technical debt.
Ease of use does not come from a distro. It comes from how good you are at setting up desktop environment.
As for developers paradise, i honestly doubt that debian-like system would be what you need. If you are serious about writing code, then you most likely will require custom compilations of programs. And ability to recompile them with same setting, when new version comes out (and as soon as possible).
Additionally, most of the "user friendly" debians have this notion of automatic updates. I honestly hope that you can see what harm can come from this.
I would recommend for you to check some other distros and not to limit yourself to debians.
P.S. if something is "hard" to install or maintain, it only means that you have decided not to send time on understanding how it works.