My fault. I should have realised that this is on a VPS where the OS is installed from a pre-configured image. I guess the VPS provider configured it to use bash.
No worries. I have been a debian user for years. All the doubters above did not bother to run dpkg-reconfigure like you did. Its a shame that people are going to argue about something but never actually do any research. The worst part is that this thread reinforced incorrect beliefs about debian.
On a related note set the debconf priority to low so that you always know the dpkg decisions that go into the creation of your system. That way you are not ignorant like the doubters above...
