Essentially this becomes just a different way of installing binaries for the distro of choice, once the correspondence between an executable name and the package name has been established.

Security issues are much less than I initially thought but there are some, mostly as Sunny pointed out because it is so new.

There are mechanical difficulties in establishing binary/package/dependency relationships and I have no idea how well they have been worked through.

There is an article and talkbacks on Freshmeat which I found informative.  

Br3n, this might become a workable system generally in the future, especially if some major distro adopts it as a preferred means, but until then I'd consider it bleeding-edge: you don't do it unless you've been well trained in using sharp tools and have a well stocked first aid kit at hand.

The whole security section sounds awfully glib and (grossly) overstates the vulnerabilities of local installs in favor of this model.  

I'm not making accusations (in a local, well secured environment this model may well be a better way of serving software; i. e. there are potentially very good uses in the right circumstances) but if I wanted to plant a mole to attack some otherwise unsavvy linux users at a later time, this is how I would go about it.

The two of you get together and buy a mac- mini for her.

She gets a stable *nix based OS, that's easy to learn, and adminster.