> Gentoo's biggest draw for me however is its philosophy and dedication to "choice".

Same. I remember when I was going through the install handbook its three stated "design principals [sic]" of openness, choice, and power [0] spoke to me.

> I liken Gentoo to being given a bucket of Lego bricks.

I recall seeing some comment (might've been ascribed to Daniel Robbins, not sure) about how "Gentoo was created to be LFS for humans."

[0]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Abo...