Why can't you remove all unnecessary components from the IDE? For me VS 2008 with Resharper makes no problems at all on my 4GB Ram desktop with loads of other crap running in parallel.
That said, I once thought Emacs was bloated. Now, it's quite nimble compared to other programming tools.
On Emacs ... you still have to pay attention to the loaded extensions, and if you've got dozens of them (especially the Jdee extension, with all the dependencies) it can be as bloated as a full IDE (and it shows in startup times).
While he's fat, it's not clear why it matters. (It matters to his health but not to the bus passengers.)
In what ways does the VS "bloat" matter?
Basically, it will not run on a small netbook. Not at acceptable speeds.
And it still runs Django faster than my company-issued 4 gig Windows Core 2 Duo laptop.
So, "bloat" is relative to your machine. What's "bloated" today is not going to be bloated 5-10 years from now, and vice versa. If this isn't what you're talking about, you're using the wrong word.
Actually, bloat is measurable. It's the difference between being able to use a tiny netbook for a whole day without bothering to recharge it (provided you have a big enough battery pack) and having to be tethered to a desk for the whole day.
Of course I would love to have 16 cores of pure performance, 32 gigs of RAM, a couple terabytes of wicked fast SSD storage. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to fold it up, throw it in my shoulder bag and leave the office in order to work from a charming cafe while I watch the sunset. At least not for the next five years or so.
Everybody has priorities.
EDIT: wanted to ADD and didn't notice I was replying to myself