Yes it is very much doable and you can get a functional system. But there can be 2 main problems for your case:
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you would literally install Debian and choose nothing (no DE just a bare minimum). On Arch, this is easy because it came with some packages or you can install during live to get wifi working. On Debian , last I heard you need to do some dhcp wizardry.
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cross apps compatibility. This is very serious. Even “lightweight” DE like xfce has a lot of hidden stuff that helps to run your notifications , powers and brightness/volume. And that does not count it you want stuff from Gnome or KDE: they even have more special libraries. In your case, the worst scenario would be to have multiple libraries/configs from different DE and they try to do the same thing. This is very hard to debug and maintain.
Point 1) is not as bad, if you use an Ethernet or somehow connects to the internet. It is only for the 1st phase where you install stuff though. After that you can just use the DE’s network manager.
Point 2) should not be a problem IF you are running a window manager. The reason is that in these setups you can choose exactly what you want without messing up…On DE you can too, but you migght break things. For eg, choose dunst for notitication or xfce4-notifyd. On a mixed DE setup? Bad idea imo.
any ideas how to add that engine to Vanadium on GrapheneOS?