I think it's better to release the version of the software which your developers actually tested; I therefore tend to delete the 'debug' target from the project/makefile, so that there's only one version that can be built (and tested, and debugged, and released).
For a similar reason, I don't use 'assertions' (see also Are assertions always bad? ...).
One person there argued that the reason for a 'debug' version is that it's easier to debug: but, I counter-argued that you may eventually want to support and debug whatever it is you released, and so you need to build a release which you can if necessary debug ... this may mean enabling debug symbols, and disabling some optimizations, even in the 'release' build.
Someone else said that "this is such a bad idea"; it's a policy I evolved some years ago, having been burned by:
- Some developers' testing their debug but not release versions
- Some developers' writing bugs which show up only in the release version
- The company's releasing the release version after inadequate testing (is it ever entirely adequate?)
- Being called on to debug the release version
Since then I've seen more than one other development shop follow this practice (i.e. not have separate debug and release builds).
What's your policy?