I was compiling my Linux kernel for slackware and...
 

In the middle of compiling I see a lot of the things I decided to take out in the configuration are being compiled as modules. I don't want this many modules, considering I compiled out the hardware I don't have.

The only modules that are actually being built are those that scroll up the screen after issuing the make modules_install command.

You can check in the /lib/modules/<kernel-version> directory to verify what was built.

That makes sense.