For the the recovery CD, I just need the basic apps to edit text files and partition/format hard drives.
terminal (xterm is fine)
spacefm, udevil -> not sure about fuse
medit, nano
partitioning tools -> fdisk, cfdisk (I like the ncurses interface), the newer ones for gpt
gparted -> but with the file support for btrfs and xfs
ntfs-3g -> I have Windows machines 
wget
curl
archive tool -> fsarchiver, p7zip-full
wicd -> or just ceni
firefox-esr -> not as buggy, doesn't get whacked by gtk
That's really all I can think of past the base system, coreutils stuff.
Do you use any specialty networking and forensics tools? Those are always handy to have. Hakerdefo probably has few favorites.
Just the basic gtk and icons, don't need any of the multimedia apps.
Phase III of this endeavor is completed with the above toolset added except for Firefox or any browser at all
These are the files needed to get to the goal of Phase III which was to have a build to the point of a fsarchive and add specific tools.. think of these as Silos now as development goes forward.. this is the repeatable process I never had to do what I have really wanted in testing different setups and builds.
xorg fluxbox lightdm spacefm lxappearance udevil medit xfce4-appfinder dbus-x11 bleachbit psmisc tint2 conky-all xfce4-terminal consolekit policykit-1 yad ncdu rsync squashfs-tools xorriso live-boot live-config live-boot-initramfs-tools live-config-systemd syslinux-common syslinux isolinux liblzo2-2 mtools libburn4 libisoburn1 libisofs6 libjte1 xdotool wmctrl gksu gparted live-tools user-setup xterm nitrogen mirage fsarchiver libcurses-perl libterm-readkey-perl libcurses-ui-perl libio-stty-perl libio-pty-perl libexpect-perl libnl-3-200 libpcsclite1 wpasupplicant scrot curl libgtk2-perl ntfs-3g p7zip-full xfsdump xfsprogs btrfs-progs btrfs-tools curlftpfs xfce4-screenshooter hardinfo bum grsync ssh-askpass
and these refracta tools
refractainstaller-base_9.1.9-1_all.deb
refractainstaller-gui_9.1.9_all.deb
refractasnapshot-base_9.3.4_all.deb
refractasnapshot-gui_9.3.4_all.deb
also included is the default VSIDO /etc/skel which is the default desktop ... and all /usr/local/bin tools (hakerdefo goodies included!)
The x64 is 329 MiB and the x32 is 332 MiB
I will put them both in the test areas once I am done testing them one more time
What I would like to see now is additional thoughts on what should be included and how.. I can script anything with wget and the vsido-welcome script
Think about VSIDO this small and first time logging in does an install of all multimedia and browser of your choice.. think out of the box.. because we can now