Drupal modules versus Joomla Core functionality

Firstly, I want to make it very clear that I am not bashing one platform over another nor do I want to start some kind of "Joomla versus Drupal" debate as I see that this is something that's been done to death. I simply want a few opinions from other Drupal users regarding a few queries I have.

I am in the process of developing my first Drupal site after deciding that I wanted to make the switch from Joomla (Even Dries has noticed an influx of us Joomla "refugees" as he puts it :D). I want to make the switch simply because my reading over the past few years has led me to believe that the Drupal platform is much more extensible and much more powerful than that of the Joomla platform (in my opinion). I also notice that the quality of the modules available for Drupal is much higher and I basically like the community feel even though I am not clued up enough yet to contribute.

What I have been seeing is that Joomla provides some functionality that I have become used to that Drupal does not include natively namely, menu links to a "section"/"category" in various different layouts i.e. blog, table etc.

Can someone clarify if I am right in thinking that this type of functionality can only be achieved using the Views module? I am more than happy to go ahead and construct a site using it as it is by far an awesome addition to the Drupal platform but it seems strange to me that so many sites need to have x, y, z modules installed every time when certain functionality could be included in core.

Don't get me wrong, there are some things like SEO in Joomla that every user adds to a fresh install that could also be included in the Joomla core (I also realise that it is there to a certain extent in 1.6) so it definately goes both ways.

I'd be very interested in people's view on this and perhaps the steps that you take on a default Drupal install to get it "ready" for development?

Thanks in advance,
Arthur