As a counterexample, springboot is the quickest thing to get start and yet allows you to do complex stuff. I for one, love it.
> springboot is the quickest thing to get start
What do you mean by this? Startup times, or developer onboarding?
Because I've had this conversation before if the latter. To me, Spring seems like the last gasp of "Enterprise" Java. Too much is implicit and obscure (aspect-oriented programming is an anti-pattern, IMHO), too much is configured (yuck, XML).
Each to their own I guess.
Does maven still have issues with snapshot builds and classpaths?
I've managed to avoid Spring, everyone I know that's worked with it complains it's difficult to work with.
For microservices I like simple, single-purpose pieces like sparkjava.