Yeah, although I would argue that there are far fewer moving pieces in Nostr than there are in ATProto and that's part of why it's so simple - it's just clients and relays. That's it!

Edit: another thing I thought about just now is that you don't really have to worry about implementing most NIPs - many are not relevant if you're just building an application. All the Bitcoin Lightning Network stuff, for example, or private messaging, Blossom, etc.