I remember when the GNOME file manager was this kind of interesting hybrid that used MC for the backend. The one thing I liked about it was that it could be docked in Window Maker. Yep I was using a Dock in GNOME waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before most GNOME users.
Nowadays it's still possible to replicate my old Window Maker desktop in XFCE.
You're looking at the full mc package rather than just mcedit. Even then, Midnight Commander is absolutely worth that whopping 7.9MB of space it takes for all the functionality it provides.
Openwrt is not an example to use to compate against a package size, as it's target built to fit into small firmware storage spaces on all sorts of random hardware. That's comparing existential philosophy with oranges.