Sometimes simply changing a single configuration option for a port can cause one new port to be installed that depends on a bunch of other port that depend on a bunch of other ports that depend on....
Yes. That's true but on most cases this happens on a new update of a package. Not because I changed a flag.
You probably use "heavy" applications that rapidly grow and frequently add new dependencies.
I use the well known for a desktop computer.
Xfce4, mozilla, transmission, gimp, geany, xfce4-terminal, xfburn, xarchiver, libreoffice, virtualbox, gcalctool, minitube, mousepad, ristretto image viewer, vlc, osmo, cairo-clock, kdenlive, supertuxcart, xtrlock. The half of them are part of xfce4 and some of them have no dependencies.
And some terminal apps as Kismet, aircrack, hydra, conky and finally some xfce4-plugins as xfce4-screenshooter, weather-plugin etc
All this are about 650 packages + xorg + nvidia driver.
With fonts, flash player, zip extentions as rar, 7zip etc we are on 700 packages. Updating this for a year, now I am on 840!