I don’t find 5e bloated exactly. But I do think it has a few too many systems in place, sometimes with overlapping use-cases.

Like attacks, skill checks, saves… They’re all basically the same thing, an opposed check, but they have slightly different rules. Sometimes the player is rolling against a target, but sometimes the target is rolling to save against? It’s a little strange, and adds a bit of extra complexity where I don’t really think it’s necessary.

A lot of it is just legacy systems that are kept because it wouldn’t be D&D without them.