No one judges a painting by the amount of paint, or a wooden chair by the number of nails in it. The amount of LoC doesn’t matter. What matters is that the code is bug-free, readable, and maintainable.

But reducing the amount of LoC helps, just like using the correct word helps in writing text. That’s the craft part of software engineering, having the taste to write clear and good code.

And just like writing and any other craft, the best way to acquire such taste is to study others works.