Configurability is Key

I think there's something of a divide between people who use this mod on newer versions and people who prefer the older ones. While I'm not here to start a version war, I do believe Quark is an example of a mod that has only gotten better as time has gone on.
The original versions of Quark had a simple goal of introducing "Vanilla+" content. This was before the explosion of popular and extremely well-made "Vanilla+" mods, and Quark was something of a pioneer in that respect. Newer versions of the mod show this age in how they, compared to older versions, prioritize features and thoughtful integration into the vanilla ecosystem. A post I often come back to is Vazkii's old release notes for the 1.18 version, where he speaks about some of the design decisions in slashing several features from the mod during the updating process.

For quite a while now, one of the most common bits of criticism leveled at Quark was the sheer amount of extraneous and extremely niche content included in it.
While "if you don't like it, don't use it" is a common answer to these bits of critique (especially given Quark's configurability), I think that dismissing them like that is reductive to the problem at hand - the fact that the mod does, in fact, contain a lot of features that would get you laughed out of a Mojang meeting if you tried to suggest them.

Looking through the old 1.12 version set, I'm struck by two observations: the number of features which just exist in Vanilla now to some extent or another, and the degree to which the "extremely niche content" shows up alongside the mod's most useful additions. For example: I literally cannot live without the Reacharound Placing. I forgot hotkeying inventory to offhand was once a modded feature because I use it so much. Meanwhile, the Lit Redstone Lamp is an extremely boring item. (Sorry to any Lit Redstone Lamp stans out there.) Older versions of Quark showcase this type of imbalance more severely, where a lineup of forgettable building blocks is included alongside game-changing quality of life features.
I find that I'm consistently very happy with the direction this mod's development is going in. It adds new features more carefully these days, and older ones are updated to work more seamlessly with new vanilla features. This is why I can strongly recommend the modern versions of Quark, especially those after the aforementioned 1.18 release. The older versions feel more like a relic of a past era, but they were made for a game with less overall polish and a fairly different design system.
All this being said, I have never understood the criticisms of "bloat" when you can configure every feature in the mod. The configuration menu means you can easily click through and remove anything you don't like if you already understand the mod, which you have to in order to know what you want to get rid of. This combined with the trimming of some lesser-quality features makes this mod a perfect addition to pretty much any pack, in my opinion.