my real question though, is, can people live on just the basal and exercise?
I think the issue here comes down to what your pancreas is doing.
Once you're "full" T1, producing practically no meaningful insulin, seems to me you're just substituting basal for bolus. I.e., overall you'll wind up taking larger basal doses than really necessary to cover carb spikes after meals, that don't spike so bad because you're clearing the glucose with large muscle activity (which is using the basal insulin to get the glucose in to the muscle cells).
Ironically, if you skip the exercise and eat less on a day, you'll end up going low again and again, because you have too much basal insulin in your system.
This is not how basal is supposed to be used. In fact, when you try to rely only on basal insulin to also cover eaten carbs, you're operating in a way similar to T2's on sulfonylureas (or other beta cell stims) -- background insulin that isn't balancing liver glucose release, keeping you steady, but rather excess insulin constantly driving you down lower and lower.
While certainly there are many differences from a T2, the practical impact on your life in treating this way is very similar. You have to keep more rigid eating and excercise schedules, stick to meal plans (i.e. content), and watch more closely for hypos.
Better to do the necessary experimentation to establish as good a basal dosing regimen as possible to cover just the basal needs, then bolus for food as usual.
Of course, getting a pump changes everything (for the much much better, IMO).