This shows to me that you either didn’t use Linux a lot or don’t understand it.
quite often what is there isn’t remotely a recent version.
That is cause you’re using a stable release distro. If you wanted up to date packages you wouldn’t use something based on Debian stable but either a rolling release or semi-rolling like Fedora. Or Flatpaks, appimages, and the many other options you have. Again, not hard stuff to figure out if you are willing to learn. User’s fault.
Removing the ability to install .debs
Nobody is doing that, except maybe Ubuntu, you just need to learn how to do it. And if your distro does it, well wouldn’t you know it there 100000 distros more you can choose. Again if you’re looking for .debs first of all you’re not getting something different than what you’re getting on the official repo, and secondly you’re almost certainly looking for software that is lesser known or has bad support for Linux. In 2023 almost everything someone needs is in the repos of distros like Mint and Debian. Certainly everything for the type of user that is too lazy to Google anything.