increases the fragmentation...?

[M.R.]

Slowly drifting OT...?  Or maybe not.

I wouldn't call it "fragmentation", as long as the same application
binary (from the same repository) will continue to work in the
"Ubuntu group" of Debian-based distributions.

That is why, in the subject at hand, I am most concerned with the
fact that some applications (Firefox) can not be kept from behaving
in this "dismembered menu" oddity manner. As long as this just
happens to be some Ubuntu packager/desktop programmer idea of
"Apple-like cool feature" that I can reset, that's fine. But if a
normal, Linux-wide, cross-distribution application (Gimp, Office,
Terminal, Gedit, my mailclient, etc...) is doctored so that a
configuration remedy described above will not work (or will result
in problems), that would indeed result in fragmentation, most
undesirable for all of the Linux community.

M.R.