OEM's, Cabs, clean or loaded? kitchen ?'s.

[Kayin]

I'm really at a bit of a loss here..

what're the advantages to using OEM's on a kitchen install rather than using something like teir-autoinstall to install a bunch of cabs after installing a very basic rom?

What are the advantages to having a lean rom vs one with a lot of programs?

OEM's seem to me like they're no different aside from having the advantage that they're less of a pain to deal with when flashing - however, they also don't seem to be delete-able when a new version of a program comes out...

My biggest annoyance is my lack of ram, and need to re-customize all my apps when I flash the rom since OEM's are in the fresh-install state and my settings need adjusting again and again.