Hello @Firsh
What you describe is the track I continually find that I am carving out with many of my Discourse sites.
Discourse is really great for me in that way. As a theme developer I love that Discourse kind of already has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach (“under the hood”).
I design and create solutions best and most efficiently using a subtractive process, and Discourse provides me a super long and super fast runway which is why it continues to be my go-to platform as a starting point for developing all sorts of sites.
Simplify simplify simplify is my daily mantra. And if my first iteration is lacking something and I need a “Plan B”, then, with Discourse as a development platform I always seem to find that my options are really unlimited.
As a designer simplifying a cluttered UI is a snap. Just remove and hide stuff until it just has only the features — and nothing more — for the specific use case.
And of course the robust community of developers here on meta is the most fun and the best asset of all to help keep me motivated and move quickly and painlessly through any challenges I run up against.