Very good summary!

As a remark:
You can make --no-install-recommends a default behavior by adding this line to /etc/apt/apt.conf:The same works for suggested packages:is equivalent to the switch --no-install-suggests

My images have both lines in apt.conf by default. If you temporarily want to tell apt to install suggested or recommended packages, just add the switches --install-suggests and --install-recommends

To change this permanently just replace the "0" with a "1" or delete the line altogether. apt's default behavior is to install suggested and recommended packages.