I think installing software behind the back of your distributions package management is a really bad idea.
Also note that the fgrlx/catalyst drivers for AMD/ATI are strongly tied to Ubuntus current Xorg version. hence it's kind of guaranteed that at least these drivers are always up to date on every distribution. "Want to use the proprietary drivers? Install the same Xorg version Ubuntu uses!"
This does, however, not apply to Nvidia and intel. Yet I think your distributor is responsible for up to date software.
This is hazardous in the best of scenarios and always leads to someone having a bad experience.
Nothing extracted yet.
Since Ubuntu's built-in support for fetching and updating proprietary drivers is spotty at best (and I'm sure some distros are even worse), the "Check for Video Driver Updates" feature in the Steam menu would be a very useful feature to port to the Linux client. And judging from how many of the beta users need still-forthcoming AMD drivers in order to play certain games right now, I'd advise getting this to a functional state in time for said drivers' release.