Semantics. Some of the packages are included, all of them have to be turned on and configured, and hopefully the user already knows about use package and understands the syntax for customizations and keybindings. Of course, if they try to Google how to use these packages they'll realize that Eglot doesn't work with DAP, so if you want to debug anything you'll need to go download the third party lsp-mode and dap-mode, configure them, then realize everyone uses swiper, consul, etc. which you'll need to download and configure as well.
> but really the defaults are fine -- just old.
I assume this is just Stockholm syndrome. Every Emacs config starts by turning on the same minor modes hooked to prog major modes for simple stuff like bracket matching and line numbers. Every config sets the same early-init.el params to stop emacs from being slow. If the defaults were sane, everyone wouldn't be disabling and enabling the same stuff in their config. The defaults are not sane precisely because people complain that changing any of the defaults for a 30 year old editor in 2024 is tantamount to open source treason.
> but really the defaults are fine -- just old.
I assume this is just Stockholm syndrome. Every Emacs config starts by turning on the same minor modes hooked to prog major modes for simple stuff like bracket matching and line numbers. Every config sets the same early-init.el params to stop emacs from being slow. If the defaults were sane, everyone wouldn't be disabling and enabling the same stuff in their config. The defaults are not sane precisely because people complain that changing any of the defaults for a 30 year old editor in 2024 is tantamount to open source treason.