Unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, install everything and use what you want.

Since I use Fluxbox, I customize my menus to show only the applications I use. If I have an occasional need to use one of the other applications, I start it from the command line.

If you are using KDE or XFCE, you could edit the menus not to show applications you don't want to use. The unused programs won't use any resources by just lying on your hard drive, except for storage space.

Of course you can, no doubt about that.

This doesn't mean that you should.

In Slackware's case you shouldn't, unless you be sure you won't have to request help in this forum or elsewhere when you will miss a dependency.

<rant>We have had too much of that already.</rant>

True Didier. I did however mention using the Beyond Linux from Scratch book however as a guide to see which package could be removed safely without disrupting dependencies.