When problems get solved, the remaining problems become more salient. The most salient feedback we get in the last 3+ years is that the "getting started" UX has too much friction. (And this affects old users too, whenever I install Nvim on a new machine without my bag-of-tricks, I notice where friction is.)

For most users that want LSP, or even just to try Nvim for 2 minutes to see what it can do, it's not acceptable that our intro docs have to say "go here or there to install this or that plugin manager, and read their docs, then come back...".

Being able to say "add vim.pack.add(http://...) to your config, then :restart", is a complete answer.

vim.pack is relatively tiny (low maintenance), and zero performance cost for users that don't use it. Not bloat.

It's the opposite of bloat, because it allows us to more often choose "runtime-dependencies", instead of "shipping the universe" in the default build. That's a very welcome "release valve".

- Example of "shipping the universe": Vim's 1000+ builtin syntax files, ftplugins, etc.

- Example of "runtime-dependencies": nvim-lspconfig, treesitter parsers.

> The only users who need to do that are the ones who have already found a plugin that they want to install,

You skipped some steps.

> automatic dependency management

None of the existing plugin managers do that, except luarocks.