I prefer having a clean instance so I can open up an emacs for the project I'm currently working on, as opposed to lugging all those other buffers around and leaving any changes intact. So I don't use a daemon.

And these "advanced techniques" aren't really all that hard - 90% is just using use-package, which has a number of other advantages. It can be set up to install uninstalled packages, so you can do a self-installing init.el. In my case mine will download my other config files, install use-package and then install all packages I use.

It also leads to better organization of your config, because you keep the packages self-contained instead of splattering random settings all over init.el.