Rolling 'core' version?

Hey, good to be here, at last.

I have just installed the ‘core’ Deb-Ian version and I am impressed, well done. A long time openbox@archLinux user, looking for a modern KDE-based alternative, here I am.

The concept of a ‘core’ installation where you are equipped with a ‘bare-enough’, usable system and get to decide what extra components are to be installed very much appeals to me. I would like to have an opportunity to give an Arch-based ‘core’ slimmed-down version a spin, unfortunately there isn’t one, hence my question(s):
[list]
[]is this concept hard to implement? where do I start if I were to implement/develop such a solution? (small tap in the back and pointing in the right direction would be quite sufficient here)
[
]is there a comprehensive list of differences between the ‘core’ and a ‘full’ version?
[*]could such a concept version of ‘netrunner-running-core’ be based on bare Arch instead of Manjaro?
[/list]
Once again, thanks for the Netrunner, great job.