I have been reasonably happy with Ubuntu, but pulseaudio is driving me CRAZY and I HATE it, and I want a distro without it.
I have mainly been on Ubuntu because it uses the latest kernel.
Should I switch to Debian etch?
I want one that is fast and has the most bleeding-edge kernel and alsa.

Not Etch, that's oldstable. If you want bleeding edge stuff in Debian, you can run Sid (unstable). Not sure if pulse audio is default, but you can certainly remove it and install alsa.

For that matter, in Ubuntu, you should be able to remove pulseaudio and install alsa too.

that is possible ofcourse, but not without a hassle or two. Ubuntu has pulse as dependency for it's core system, in the sence, that when you remove pulse it also removes the ubuntu desktop. Without the ubuntu desktop, you won't receive update notifications anymore, nor some other things. And can break the system when dist upgrading lateron to a new ubuntu version. it's a mess in ubuntu, compared to other distro's.


Distro's that comes to mind, are: Gentoo, Arch, Slackware and such.
those are base distro's which gives the users real freedom in what to utilize, and not making it dependend on it as the core.