The 2.2 kernel series are a new kernel generation introducing several valuable changes both in the kernel and in other programs based on kernel features, along with a whole slew of new hardware drivers and bug fixes for existing drivers. There have been notable improvements in network installation support, including DHCP configuration support.
More architectures support serial console installation.
This means that tasks can be used at any time, not just installation time, and can be retained across upgrades. It is expected that for the next major Debian release, debconf will be the main interface users interact with during installation and configuration. These flavors each support a different set of hardware. This includes almost all drivers supported by Linux built as modules. This includes drivers for network devices, SCSI devices, sound cards, Video4Linux devices, etc.