Comment 2 for bug 1179367

I dont think this is a bug, if you look at the user-setup-apply script from raring;

Line 213:
if [ -x $ROOT/usr/sbin/adduser ]; then
 $log $chroot $ROOT adduser --disabled-password --gecos "$RET" $UIDOPT $ENCRYPT_HOME_OPT "$USER" >/dev/null || true
else
 $log $chroot $ROOT useradd -c "$RET" -m "$USER" $UIDOPT >/dev/null || true
fi

both methods will copy skel, and if the directory already exists;

Line 231:
if [ "$HOME_EXISTED" ]; then
 # The user's home directory already existed before we called
 # adduser. This often means that a mount point under
 # /home/$USER was selected in (and thus created by) partman,
 # and the home directory may have ended up owned by root.
 $log $chroot $ROOT chown "$USER:$USER" "/home/$USER" >/dev/null || true
fi

It will simply chown it to the user. So it looks like 1 of 2 things is happening here;

#1 The directory already exists and your changes to skel aren't getting copied because neither of the adduser programs will overwrite. In which case, you just need to delete the home directory from the live system.

#2 The package user-setup is not installed on the live system.

Test out these theories and let me know if this fixes the issue.