I have spent the last week or so updating my web application to a couple of plugins from JQuery UI, such as autocomplete and dialog. In the past, I have used separate plugins to achieve the same like autocomplete and jqModal. The thing is, the more I play with JQuery UI the more I find issues and complexities that didn’t exist in other plugins. Yes, it’s modular and allows one to build upon the core plugins and interactions, but it seems to lack features that were just built in to other plugins that are distributed individually. Also, it seems to me that JQuery UI adds another layer over of development JQuery and my current application, especially with its own theming and complicated CSS classes.
So I am thinking of moving back to just combining separate plugins in to one minified JS file. Is that the wrong path to choose? Is it not okay to combine individual autocomplete, form, modal window, datepicker plugins etc.
Kinda subjective, but here is my opinion. Do what works. And what works for me is doing exactly what you want to do, combine the plugins and use those. I try to stay away from JQuery UI for your mentioned reason and that the file is too large for my purposes.
The only reason I’m using Jquery UI is when my company is doing Line of Business apps that would be running on the intranet or something.