Can user #1 (the initial user) be deleted without ill effect?

Yes, that’s safe. I have done that. The core does not rely on the existence of such a user.

There might be some broken plugins whose authors think user 1 is always there and an admin, they will not work properly. On the other hand, this is a very simple test for a plugin: If it doesn’t work after you have deleted user 1, it is probably very insecure, and you need an alternative anyway.