While it wasn't really the original point, Redux picked up at a time where Angular 1 had a near monopoly. Redux got mindshare because it was the opposite. Do away with the magic, have a predictable flow, and virtually no framework. Just a design pattern where everything is explicit.
It got really popular because a lot of people want that. Typing is cheap. If a bit of boilerplate and a couple of files drastically affect your productivity, you're not solving a hard problem (and if you're not solving a hard problem, which is the common case, there are a lot of other tools better suited for it).
But because it got popular, everyone jumped on the wagon, including people who were not the target audience, or were not solving problems it was a good tool for. Now, people try to force Redux into being something else, and it really, REALLY sucks at that.
My suggestion is to try Mobx and write your code in TypeScript. It's a different concept when you first look at it but then you'll see it's actually mostly the same as Redux but with less boilerplate code.
At first I was perplexed by the boilerplate and the awkward way it seemed like I had to update 5 files just to toggle a view element -- but I figured I just didn't understand yet and one day when I did it would all make sense.
Well... after about a year of working with it, I'll admit I understand it and there is some sense to it, but there really is nothing elegant or likeable about it.
I too have never felt happy working with Redux.
I've got a side project I've been working on and was planning to use Redux since that's what I use at work, but I think I'll take this as an opportunity to try out something else.