I did a debian install this weekend, and it seemed pretty mild. It asked if I wanted separate partitions for /tmp and /home and if I wanted to encrypt my lvm. Then I chose my desktop environment from a list and that was it. It even installed grub for me.
Yes Debian 12 is easier than Debian has ever been. But your may still need to install the CUPS printing system manually, your machine may not recognise that you’ve attached a printer whereas on Mint it will, and it will install the driver.
On Debian you’ll probably have to manually install any proprietary drivers (eg WiFi) whereas LMDE did this for me automatically.
Plus the desktop will be very bland on Debian and you’ll need to take the time to obtain themes, icons etc and make it look nice. Whereas with LMDE they’ve already customised Cinnamon for you, saving lots of time.
Either way is fine but Debian will need more time to set up and LMDE is ready out of the box
