I think the point is that you should have a plan (which may or may not require debug tooling in the image) and you should include what you need for that plan an

I think the point is that you should have a plan (which may or may not require debug tooling in the image) and you should include what you need for that plan and nothing more. Finding something useful that the distro left lying around but that wasn't part of the plan might feel like a win here and there, it's just as likely to be a win for your adversary as it is for your friend.