I think what people miss about bloat, and about what's changed with software over the years, is that a vast variety of niche use-cases are now supported. Software runs on dozens of different systems, every aspect is customizable and programmable, and thousands of different programming languages and approaches are supported.

To give a random example, I use Neovim with SuperCollider, and music programming language. This involves launching a runtime, sending text to the runtime, which in turn sends commands to a server. The server generates a log, which is piped back into a Neovim buffer. There are all sorts of quirks to getting this functional, and it's a somewhat different workflow from any traditional programming model.

I'm not sure there's an easy solution to keeping things simple while also supporting the unimaginable variety of personalities, skill-levels, environments, and tasks people get up to. I do, however, think it's worth continued imagination and effort.