I very much like having an autocomplete application launcher (one button to launch the launcher, and type a letter or three to select the program you want, and enter to launch it), and Synapse is the best i've used.
With no other recommendations forthcoming from Mint Debian Edition's official package list, and with Synapse clearly stable for Debian, the need seemed clear: add Debian's packages to LMDE in a way that wouldn't cause unintended updates to Debian, rather than LMDE-released, versions of packages which they share.