1. Browsers evolve but the JS ecosystem is competitive so instead of using the brain power to find a common solution to problems we end up with a grid of benchmark of frameworks about how fast it refreshes. I still see job description mentioning Redux while you don't need it 99% of the time or even never.
2. Frontend dev is actually Blog/Video/Trend based development. Simpler tools exists but yeah.. I guess there is a market that feeds on this complexity.
Sadly our reality is that the used tool is the one that gets most publicity. I never liked React or Angular because how it mixed structure and styling. It was sold on features then simplicity. Whereas I used Riot.js, then Vue.js now using personally Svelte because it's even simpler.
BTW I do frontend+backend Node.js now learning Elixir.
2. Frontend dev is actually Blog/Video/Trend based development. Simpler tools exists but yeah.. I guess there is a market that feeds on this complexity.