I get cynic when "modern style" approaches with their megabytes and gigabytes of junk code that does nothing (or nothing anyone could clearly define) is called "expressive".

Many of the modern conveniences might be expressive in the small (function level). But it quickly gets highly unexpressive as you move to a more global level. That is because this "expressiveness" is often achieved by arbitrary and non-orthogonal approaches, which increases dependencies and hinders modularity. In the end, it's only more convenient to paint yourself into a corner. Seen that in many codebases.