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your kernel is already thin and light. if you're using a modular kernel, as most distros default to, you're only loading the modules you need and can use.

as for apps and packages, i don't care for most distros' dependency systems, but the only downside is more files on disk -- and who really cares if there's an extra 25MB of stuff you never use on there, assuming you have the space.

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That's true for all practical purposes, but technically it's incorrect. For a start, statically linked modules can be packed more tightly into sections by the linker, whereas dynamically loaded modules will always have as much as 4kb of slack at the end of theirs.

There are a bunch more differences like this. If it's like userspace, in many cases the dynamically loaded symbols also involve a level of indirection in order to access them since they have no fixed address at link time, which results in a small performance hit.

Modules also include metadata which remains for as long as it is loaded, but I think this is negligible.

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