Selective upgrading of packages

If the package doesn't want lots of dependencies then I'll pull down straight from Unstable. If it's something that lots of other packages depend on I usually won't do it and will source code compile.

This is usually how it goes for me when I install Debian stable and find out the software I want to run wants newer versions of something-or-other then Debian provides. In ranking from preferable to not:

1. Check backports.debian.org
2. See if something can be pulled from testing without pulling in a lot of dependencies.
3. Use apt-source and related items to compile packages.
4. upgrade to testing or unstable.