> Is anybody here consciously trying to keep their Emacs configs/setup "lean", minimalist, as small as possible?

How small? I try for things to not get out of control and as I ofc version my config, I semi-regulary remove stuff I don't use anymore from my config.

But I take about 3 000 of custom elisp, written over the years, doesn't qualify as lean and minimal?

Now I gotta say: I saw packages making it into the main branch and that simplified my configuration. For example eglot: I just adopted it.