Background: For the past few versions (1.14 onward) I've maintained a decorative mod that adds a not insignificant number of blocks.  I've done so in the simplest way possible, with a texture and JSONs for each individual block.  Inevitably, I got requests for stairs and other models, and here things started to wobble.  Memory requirement shot up, sharply, to the point where I felt I had to include stairs and the like as separate addons, so users could install them only if they did not have "Carpenters Blocks" (or something like it) that allowed them to apply an arbitrary block texture to a model.

Over the months, I've wondered off-and-on if there is a better way for me to create the blocks that may be a bit more smarter, and a bit less memory hungry.  Given a particular world is likely to only use a (smallish) fraction of the available models, perhaps the creation of the models could be postponed until they are actually needed?

I don't really want to move to a TileBlock Entity, but could consider it.

I've also looked at Baked Models, but here I'm not sure if they will help: I still need to get item models from somewhere, and if I'm creating the block model to create the item's, I've not made any progress.

Additionally, I very much want to keep things with as vanilla a feel as possible.  Stairs should follow the standard vanilla stair recipe, and be placeable as would a vanilla stair.

So -- any thoughts, suggestions, or corrections?  How can I best add many blocks, while not increasing memory demands proportionally?

Tile Entities are more intensive, not less.

The game already uses baked models for your blocks, so that won't help, other than cutting down startup time (assuming you do less to compute your models than the base game).

Unfortunately beyond that, I don't think we can help.

I am actually registering separate blocks.

I did consider block states, but felt their multiplicative nature would be prohibitive.  If that's incorrect I'm willing to give them a go.