> I don't think I have ever used stars in making a decision to use a library and I don't understand why anyone would.

You might not have but the makers of dependencies that you use might so still problematic.

True, but that is beyond my control. I am not evaluating every package within a dependency tree unless something happens, out of practicality.

I have limited time on this Earth and at my employer. My job is not critical to life. I am comfortable with this level of pragmatism.