I'd use rebase --interactive quite aggressively on a public branch when it's a feature branch that's not yet been merged. As I'm the only owner of it, the way I see it I owe no guarantees to anyone. You're welcome to watch it, but it's work in progress in every aspect.
Github and refined-github[1] make it easier, by keeping track of changes from a `push -f` and having merge/squash/rebase options on merging, but I know of large projects with an explicit "no rebasing" rule as it can get confusing for reviewers. I'd say it depends on the project, maintainers, and general workflow. Which is good!
