Basic navigation from screen to screen shouldn't require any research. It doesn't for native platforms. Facebook doesn't provide a built-in solution, which speaks volumes.
Core navigation still doesn't "just work" for RN. At all. The pure JS solutions are garbage and limit what you can do tremendously. The native solutions have tons of other issues you have to hack around.
What's wrong with using react-router? That's just one solution that I've found easy and without significant limitation. Easier than native solutions. I'm predominantly a web developer who uses React and related technologies a lot, which makes me wonder if many of the people who are frustrated with RN aren't exactly the target audience and will hit a learning curve.
When a developer suggests spending "hours of research" on a problem is enough to make them abandon a potential technology, I don't often think the problem lies with the technology.
For what it's worth my team uses React Native and we've faced the same problems; we solved it by making sure every project has one dev capable of doing the lower level native work. That still means the rest of the team can be web developers, who are much easier to hire because more people know that stack. That alone makes RN a good bet despite its quirks.