> a product that isn't remotely usable without 3rd-party plugins

That's not even remotely true. Obsidian out-of-the-box is very usable, covers pretty much all use cases for a note-taking software.

I've been using it for ages, and I haven't needed to turn on the Community Plugins switch for anything.

Usually the people I see with tons of Obsidian plugins are people who think "just one more plugin" is what stands between them and productivity.