I didn’t mean “dictate” literally, but whatever, I agree with everything you wrote pretty much.
I mostly went into this discussion in the first place because I was annoyed that like half the replies were about the name and not the software - when the name really isn’t that extreme. But at this point I’m part of the problem, so I’ll stop now.
dconf can also be configured with text files (with a format similar to ‘.ini’ files), although enabling this support isn’t trivial, and it’s not the most well documented feature.
I also used to run a ”lobotomized” Gnome, but TBH I found it easier in the long run to start from a minimal base.