> (consider that some Emacs power-users used to do most things in Emacs, including email, Usenet, etc.)

We still do. Consider that I have coordinates for weather in my .emacs, and yes, I should probably externalize that, but FFS, sharing my own incredibly personalized and personal configuration files was not first on my mind when I did that.

You want snippets, that will be useful to someone other than me? Fine. But there's no contradiction in arguing for openness in infrastructure and privacy in personal affairs.