[lifeisstillgood]

The couple of times I have done something similar I have found an odd outcome - first was internal (to large company codebase) and second was npm imports years ago. Both times one ended up pulling in huge numbers of dependencies (900+ npm, 600 or so internal)

The point was that pretty no much what starting point one used, you pulled in much the same amount. There was a common core but even so it was like a starfish - if you start at tip of one limb, you pull in that limb and the core. start on another limb same thing.

but all the limbs are about the same size

it's just anecdata but it has been at the back of my mind as some kind of rule.