I have no problem with bloat as long as it doesn't affect anything else, but the problem is, it always does.
Always. There are no exceptions.
I'm a still photographer, and LR started out as a way to post-process and file still photographs. They sold me that idea, and I bought into it, and now I have a large LR database that would be a little complicated to get out of. Now I have to pay for video capability and book making and other stuff. I have no use for it, but I have to pay for it to keep my database going in a current version. So why not just skip the new version? Because I do want the updates and increased functionality of the product that was originally sold to me -- that is, better data-base functionality, better ACR, more camera coverage, better still-photo post processing. But to get that, I have to pay for all these other new functions that originally were not part of the program.
And that's the difference between updates and bloat. Updates make the old program better. Bloat adds stuff that a lot of the original buyers don't want, but have to pay for.
I think Adobe would have done better is they had a core LR program with lots of optional plugins -- not for small features, like a plug-in for sharpening, but the big ones, like video processing or book production. Sell them separately.