> Almost none of the packages the author listed get used, including zsh
Just to clarify: the point of having packages like lshw and zsh available is not for the case of performing the automated installation (where, yes, they are not used), but for the case where I want to interactively poke around in a booted installer to inspect the target system.
That's fair, having a remote shell environment that you feel comfortable to poke around is pretty great.
For git, you commented "for checking out github.com/stapelberg/configfiles". I wonder if you sometimes install NixOS locally from the installer? If so, I can understand having those packages around can be very useful.
Just to clarify: the point of having packages like lshw and zsh available is not for the case of performing the automated installation (where, yes, they are not used), but for the case where I want to interactively poke around in a booted installer to inspect the target system.