As someone who submitted a patch a few years back to fix a gimp startup problem, I don't think they really care. The visual purity of seeing all those plugins

As someone who submitted a patch a few years back to fix a gimp startup problem, I don't think they really care. The visual purity of seeing all those plugins loading, and having it take a long time seems to be part of the mystique they are looking for. If it just started right up, it wouldn't send the same message.