32 Flavors (AKA Plugins)

I hear often that our site has too many plugins, but I’m not sure how to get all the things we need without them. My PHP knowledge is more outdated than CRT monitors, so I rely on plugins to do the work for me.

So how many is too many? And when I post a question which inevitably receives a reply something like “you need a plugin for that,” what am I to do?

I’m being comical but serious. Your suggestions please.