As someone with some years of experience lugging stuff I've gone small too.
The shrinking kit is related to age (and forgetfulness), and the more agressive back pain that comes from a bag of Nikon glass. We've must have all noticed mad trends in size too.
I first shrank systems in the late 70's, from lead lined Zenit to Minolta then impish Olympus OM (via a beautiful borrowed but massive Nikon F). But since then AF SLRs have got bigger and bigger, although slightly lighter now they're bigger than ever. It's crazy.
Is it a marketing thing, bigger = better?
I'm not a pro, so the heavy lugging would usually happen on holiday, maybe twice a year if lucky. Not wanting to miss a picture, the problem would start when thinking about the day ahead. Incapable of deciding what to leave behind, then testing the huge bag and thinking that's totally fine, not that heavy. I would have forgotten that the year before (and the year before that) I did the same thing and it ended with tears and pills. Back ache can lay you up for days. No more please!
Bags don't help that much either, the larger the bag the more inclined you are to fill it. No matter how light a big bag is empty it ends up weighing at least 10kg more than it should. I'm so pleased with my current M set up, with 4 small lenses in a dingy old looking and small Thinktank - I'm taking it almost everywhere I go, and isn't that the point? No need to carry the diclofenac either.
Here in London you see an lot of tourists, some with still stuff and video camera, with tripods and flash guns, who knows why, it's never that dark! We even have street lights here too, about every 20 meters!
The other noticeable minority you see here are the number of trendy younger kids carrying just one old 35mm camera, like a FM2 or K1000. Brilliant.
They've learnt - I didn't soon enough.
