I find that the surface area of a framework (amount of concepts you need to learn) is roughly comparable to the number of problems it attempts to solve. Most established frameworks started with a few problems to solve and they picked up new problems to solve on their journey. The worst offenders don't stop adding new problems to solve.

Looking for a simpler framework often starts with sacrificing some of the problems you want to solve (or didn't realise were being solved by the frameworks you're considering). Maybe I'll make a website for sorting frameworks based on more personal concerns like "on-ramping complexity" and "amount of learning required to be productive". Obviously subjective but maybe helpful.