I share the exact same aversion as you (in-fact I'm often criticised for being too far in that direction), but I find Webpack to be a very peculiar target for reducing complexity.
At it's core it's a very simple tool that does exactly one thing (combines multiple JS files into one, using the standard ES6 import/export syntax). Any additional complexity is the user's fault.
Re:How and why we moved to Vue.js
by HumanDrivenDev on Sunday February 11, 2018 @09:21PM
(#16356080)
browserify did it almost instantly with a much smaller bundle file. all without having to write a script.
It's probable that with enough time spent learning... a build tool... that webpack could perform well. But I want to solve a problem, not learn about webpack.
Not OP, but I have built up a natural aversion to adding any new tool as a dependency to my work flow. More complexity, more edge cases, more things to worry about.
I tried webpack, with settings from the tutorial. It took 7 seconds and the result was a JS file much bloated then the parts used to make it. Given that, why should I bother? I have programming to do, not build tools to yak-shave.