Yes, for me this has been the best balance between (a) the simplicity (size, 3rd party dependencies, etc.) and robustness of the system for building from source and (b) the hardware support in the source tree.

No question Linux wins on (b) given all the corporate backing, but whenever I revisit systems like Buildroot or Yocto I feel the system I am using wins on (a). More likely than not I am just resistant to change and not wanting to invest the effort to master those systems.

Purely subjective, but I suspect the system I devised for myself is simpler and more "stable" in the sense it is less reliant on third parties and thus less brittle. Those qualities are important to me.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned VoidLinux yet in this thread. Probably well worth a look at least as an example if "small and simple" are design goals.