All the "don't fork it, build it from scratch" and the opposite opinions aside, someone should actually do something about it. WordPress is indeed bloated and needs a solution faster than it takes for the X WordPress version to ship, which might be a year (or two) away.
I've thought of that, but good ideas are hard to come by and a bad idea is never worth the execution. However yes, I need to be more active. This article is the first step.