Lightweight distros User experience

For a normal distro, the number of apps it bundles has a direct influence on its usability. But a lightweight distro that will primarily be used to resurrect unused hardware is more than the sum of is bundled apps. This is because the distros in this all cut corners to get into shape: a feature-rich app here, a mainstream desktop environment there. Maintaining usability becomes a challenge with all this axing and substitutions. Also bear in mind that these distros don’t just swap mainstream, feature-rich, resource