So rather than focusing on how Microsoft/npm et al can prevent similar situations in the future, you chose to think about what relevance/importance each individual package has?

There will always be packages that for some people are "but why?" but for others are "thank god I don't have to deal with that myself". Sure, colors and whatnot are tiny packages we probably could do without, but what are you really suggesting here? Someone sits and reviews every published package and rejects it if the package doesn't fit your ideal?