What's the difference between writing x commands and hitting enter once, vs writing x commands and waiting for each command to finish? This is a good starting point for people who already know Linux and want a lean self-built system.
The secret assumption is that things will break and the builder will learn how things might break and how to fix them.
I've had a lot of fun with LFS, but if everything goes smoothly it is a bit pointless. When builds broke or I missed components there was an opportunity to better my understanding of the system. Experience with multiple failure modes in a safe environment - it counts for a lot.
It also forces you to learn what the dependency graph looks like and a little bit of why, which can be helpful.
`FROM debian:jessie` costs 53 MiB. (And by the way, please upgrade to Stretch at the earliest convenience.) `FROM alpine` costs 2 MiB. When you need to send container images across the globe on shitty connections, this matters a lot.
Generally speaking, building an LFS, you can freely choose what software to include or omit, and where there are multiple pieces of software that solve the same problem, you can choose which one to use. (Of course, you are stuck with the work of making all this work, but that is what this is all about: Learning what makes a Linux system tick.)
