Oh yeah you dont need to do all that anymore. Most things work easy. I find that better cause i dont want to run anything outdated or unpatched in my local network. The stable base helps with that. My issue is when i need someone else to compile new version of software to create a package. I find that method on debian and ubuntu to be tedious.
i think of slackware as a distro that gives you the tools to build your own distro. Every slackware user seems to have their own unique workflows which is a double edged sword.
also yeah sometimes you wanna spend time with people i feel that. Congrats on the toddler!
But china bad and scary.