I think a large part of the problem is that systems like Kubernetes are designed to be extensible with a plugin architecture in mind. Simple applications usually have one way of doing things but they are really good at it.

This begs to question if there is a wrong or right way of doing things and if a single system can adapt fast enough to the rapidly changing underlying strategies, protocols, and languages to always be at the forefront of what is considered best practices in all levels of development and deployment.

These unified approaches usually manifest themselves as each cloud providers best practice playbooks, but each public cloud is different. Unless something like Kuberenetes can build a unified approach across all cloud providers or self hosting solutions then it will always be overly complex because it will always be changing for each provider to maximize their interests in adding their unique services.