For me there's a trade-off, depending on how often I setup a new machine. Value of automating with a procedural script vs taking the opportunity to try a leaner (or more modern) toolchain.

Currently upgrade about every 2-3 years, so I do tend not to need a bunch of things each iteration, and might upgrade OS. But I'd like a backup in case e.g. hardware failure, laptop lost or stolen.

Some declarative workstation config like terraform or Ansible would be interesting.