This article feels like ignorance. The best "Windows Lite" is a Linux distro with VSCode, .NET, PowerShell, etc. There is no hope for improving Windows at this point.
To me em dashes have always just been an annoyance. For example, Word and OneNote were (and likely still are) very keen on converting every dash to an em-dash by default, and I frequently find myself needing to immediately undo that.