The issue I might still have today in 2020 is disk space, and extra time downloading updates to those packages at the next update. Even today I'd be reluctant to want to pull in large libraries that amount to an entire UI or desktop framework just for one application, unless I have a really good justification to use that application.

I am also a tad displeased today at how many optional dependencies I don't use get pulled in by package managers on my systems.

At the time it was a big deal, you went all GTK or all KDE/QT and your desktop looked ugly if you didn't. Also everyone was obsessed with 'bloat' and KDE had that rep.

In KDE2 times ? Probably an issue with the licensing of QT at the time. It has changed one or two times since then.

As another kid who got into Linux at the time, KDE and Qt had a reputation at the time for poor performance on low-cost hardware.

To give you an idea, my computer at the time was a used machine that was duct taped together and any fancy desktop would cut my battery life to about an hour. So out of necessity I was driven towards lighter weight software

Longer build times (Gentoo).

At that time the majority of Debian users were very much purists.