It should not be difficult to create a new "TDE-light" metapackage.
Trouble is identifying  the existing "metapackages" responsible for the
bloat, which has always been a downside of KDE. I spent quite a bit of
time on that, the aim was functionality without bloat.

Previous discussion on this subject (mailing list archive):  "minimal
trinity installation (14 Nov 2011 12:19:22)"
http://trinity-users.pearsoncomputing.net/?0:201111
Not much interest at that time.

This is my current package list for a "TDE Light" but quite functional
(as opposed to minimal, which just kdebase will do). It will give a
Squeeze installation of little over 2GB. It is what I used for the Exe
GNU/Linux +TDE live-cd, which squashed to under 700MB.

I stripped out all the unnecessary metas I could find and started
looking at unnecessary deps and recommends of some packages (e.g.
kaffeine, soundkonverter)

Remove any you don't want, but watch out that what you add is not
another monster meta. (and check what the "recommends" are)

###########################

kdebase-trinity

amarok-trinity
ark-trinity
gwenview-trinity
gtk-qt-engine-trinity
k3b-trinity
k3b-data-trinity
kaddressbook-trinity
kcalc-trinity
karm-trinity
kate-plugins-trinity
kcoloredit-trinity
kcron-trinity
kde-core-trinity
kde-i18n-engb-trinity
kde-i18n-es-trinity
kde-style-qtcurve-trinity
kdeaddons-kfile-plugins-trinity
kdeartwork-trinity
kdeartwork-emoticons-trinity
kdeartwork-misc-trinity
kdeartwork-style-trinity
kdeartwork-theme-icon-trinity
kdeartwork-theme-window-trinity
kdebase-kio-plugins-trinity
kdeeject-trinity
kdegraphics-kfile-plugins-trinity
kdelibs-trinity
kdelibs-data-trinity
kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins-trinity
kdf-trinity
kdiff3-trinity
kdirstat-trinity
kdm-trinity
libkcddb1-trinity
libtqt3-integration-trinity
kregexpeditor-trinity
kget-trinity
kghostview-trinity
kicker-applets-trinity
kio-locate-trinity
kipi-plugins-trinity
kmix-trinity
knemo-trinity
knotes-trinity
konq-plugins-trinity
konqueror-trinity
konversation-trinity
kpdf-trinity
kpowersave-trinity
kscreensaver-trinity
kscreensaver-xsavers-trinity
ksensors-trinity
ksnapshot-trinity
ksplash-engine-moodin-trinity
ksvg-trinity
ktorrent-trinity
kuser-trinity
kwin-style-crystal-trinity

--no-install-recommends kaffeine-trinity
--no-install-recommends soundkonverter-trinity