You do NOT need to do all OS and application upgrades, unless there are new features in some key application that you absolutely must have, and you absolutely have to upgrade the OS for the sake of compatibility. Many musicians and studios run on 2-3-year-old OS's -- "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Traditionally you'd expect to be able to get around 4-6 years out of a Mac at least [I stuck with my old iMac from 2011 to 2019], but Apple has accelerated the rate of OS updates which may reduce compatibility with older models more quickly.
With the introduction of new hardware [the new Apple-manufactured M1 CPU] that will complicate the equations -- I wouldn't go for one of those new machines for at least a couple of years, to wait for all the bugs to be worked out and all software/hardware/drivers to achieve full native compatibility.
There's no reason to delete any of the applications that come with macOS -- I'd leave them there, but just don't use them if you don't need to.
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