I still come from the days of Delphi2. There was no help to install packagas/components and it could easily take 8 hours to install a suitable development environment. I don't know if Delphi now has a way to install components automatically.
Lazarus didn't have it for a long time either. But thanks to GetMem's initiative there is now OPM and this tool has saved me hours of installations.
A lot of unpaid time has gone into this tool and certainly also a lot of money, because for OPM to work it also needs the necessary infrastructure.
You don't have to use this tool if you don't like it.
I have downloaded all packages which is more that 750M of archives, thus downloading again package when try to install it is pointless, unless package is changed. Zip download is deleted automatically after extraction.
I don't know how anyone can come up with the idea of installing all packages. But you can do what you like. OPM is an online installation tool and certainly not built for local caching of packages.
That is definitely wrong choice.
That might be your opinion. Have you ever asked the author why he had done it this way?
I have impression that OPM is created for amateurs who have no clue what they doing, not as a tool to keep all "useful" available packages in one place.
Of course OPM is also for amateurs to make installation easier. Professionals always know how to help themselves or ask politely in the forum
Of course, OPM has pros and cons like any other application and may not suit everyone. There may even be conceptual problems or missing functions
But if you are the professional you claim to be, then it is probably easy for you to incorporate all the functions and variants that you are currently criticising. After all, it's open source for your benefit. You can even create a completely new package with incomparably better functionality and an extraordinary range of functions.
So get stuck in and just do it.
But until that happens, you can request, ask, suggest, but by no means demand.