vB v1 didn't have nearly the amount of functionality, either. Only through 10+ years (or whatever) of bloat and extensions can you have everything under the sun...and then look where that leads...and unmaintainable project where customers and developers alike are pissed.
I would much rather see XF stay lean and mean. In the early days of vB, I used to use just about every option available because to me because they were important and had to do with the core running of the site/forum. After many revisions and versions (read adding "features" into the core to give customers more and more and more options in order to keep selling them something year after year), I probably use about 25% of what is available as far as standard stock options. The rest, to ME, is bloat and unneeded, and hampers the efficiency of the code. But, its like any other piece of software. The earliest versions tend to be the best because they do whatever the function of the software is supposed to be. The subsequent versions are just adding crap so they can keep selling it as "new" year after year. I can still do *just* about as much in my photoshop v2 (dos, yes DOS v3) than I can in CS5 (Windows 7 or Mac). Not THAT much has changed. Sure, some useful new features. Same with MS Office or any other piece of software that has been around a long time. Utter bloat and crap...which we need more memory and faster processors to be able to handle....so they can keep selling it to us.