"Their kernel is bloated" :D I dont compare with anything, as a linux distros job is pretty much to make me forget other ways to get "the linux stuff" because they are so good.

(Imagine how good Linux support would be if everyone would be on the same distro family like Fedora rawhide/stable/oldstable/centos-stream/almalinux;rockylinux;rhel.)

it just has support for the devices if it does detect them. which is basically the functionality you are asking for, ad-hoc device modules.

If that is true, and if the kernel will never load anything not needed for my device, then I am fine with it.

I see how monolithic is less complex and also a huge performance benefit over having the handshake between userspace and kernel space all the time (a meta dev on #techovertea talked about that).

But I would still want to debloat the kernel from unused code, as it is there somewhere and may get activated and used (why would you blocklist kernel modules otherwise?)

Also compiling for x86_64-v4 would probably improve speed, and it is rediculous to have the entire distro built for 20 years old hardware, neglecting all the improvements from over a decade.