Best way to consolidate a project for sharing??

Once you dragged all your stems back into the project, you clear everything else from the main window. Then open the Project Audio window and choose Edit>Select unused. Hit Backspace. This will clear these from the project (not from the disk). Now do a Save As... including Audio Files. That new version will only have the stems in it, the old version will remain unchanged.

Nobody is willing to deal with 163 tracks of playback just to record a handful of guitar overdubs. Also, no one will have the exact same set of plugins/instruments as you do so most of your stuff might not play correctly elsewhere. They might prefer to track in Cubase. Or ProTools. Or...

The best way is to bounce stems (groups of instruments). Solo in groups and bounce *the entire length of the song* so all files start at the same position and can be played from the project or imported in any other software.

So bounce stems, give them a lean & clean version with like 5-6 tracks and everyone's happy.