Reading through your package selection i think i like it.
I just grabbed what looked obvious from the old package list.
I for one don't bother with --no-install-recommends. I don't see the point in it.
You always install recommends? I think some of the recommended packages are absolutely crazy and leads to loads of bloat.
I don't think i understand the rest of what you do in the script, and why. Well: the rest i do, but not the sed-lines....
I just reused the script I use to build images.
I just posted it because in irc fsmithred had talked about the iso size, talked about replacing abiword with libreoffice, and so forth. I mentioned I was going to try later to build a refracta-ish iso to see the size and report back. I was just reporting back....
But the sed lines just uncomment a couple lines in adduser.conf, nothing amazing or anything.