1. Kernel: Ever heard of LTS enablement stacks? https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

2. Upstart: Works for me. I like systemd too, but I'm not going to switch distros to get it.

3. Auto-restart: As you said, it's a Debian thing. If you really don't like it, look into /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d

4. MySQL: sudo apt-get install mariadb-server (yeah, it's in the official repo)

5. Pollinate & AppArmor: If you don't want them, disable them.

6. Compiz & Mir: Use another desktop environment. Also, in case you missed the news, Mir has been postponed indefinitely.