Debhelper felt a bit too "low-level" when I first tried it. After learning a lot about Debian packages it might be a good choice now. Maybe I'll have another look. Thanks!
Check out the "not your grandpa's debhelper" presentation. (http://penta.debconf.org/dc9_schedule/events/418.en.html) The official documentation seems to disregard a lot of the recent (as in, from the last 8 years) improvements.
These days I barely need anything more than /usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.tiny