Indeed. I very much miss the ability to use Pico out of the box. I normally use it in preference over VI when I make a bugger up editing xorg.conf or similar ;)
Have you tried nano? It's a pico clone with an open license. If you can't get used to the name, use a symlink. :)
Oh excellent! I'd seen it flash on the screen during the install, and I think I'd also upgraded via Synaptic a few times on previous distros, but till today I didn't know what it was :)
Cheers!
-- Dylan Parry http://www.webpageworkshop.co.uk - FREE Web tutorials and references