If we depend on less then we are capping what we can build to only what we can write and manually integrate. This is dis-empowering.

I'd argue quite the opposite. You can build a lot more than you think, you just need to be encouraged.

if you depend on more, you are capping what you can build to only what you can manage to get working and integrate, plus you also lose control over the code; for me personally, it's a lot easier to write a complicated algorithm, than it is to figure out a complex build system for a random library in the wild (with few exceptions like miniaudio); and it's especially worth it, because when i understand the problem, i can usually define a way better api for my usecase than any library writer can