Well, I gave #use-package an honest shot. I rewrote my #emacs config using it, 5000 lines of #Org file.
It all works. Cleaned up a lot of things, replaced old ways with new ways. I now know definitively that I do not like use-package. It adds unnecessary complexity with very little benefit. It doesn't actually load any faster than my old way, in fact it seems to be slower, doing less, from start up to prompt.
:bind, :hook, :custom, and :ensure are cool. But not that cool.
I don't hate it, I can see if all you want is to load a package, bind a key, set a custom var and add a mode hook it could be handy. I won't be doing that.
Today, I'm ripping it out.