Indeed, the best build chain is no build chain at all. I've been ridiculed at work for not using node, npm, web pack etc -- but I'm not spending 20% of my time on tooling issues.

I'm interested to know who you know spends 20% of their time on tooling issues... I use node, npm and webpack pretty regularly (albeit parcel has mostly replaced webpack for me) and other than setting up some npm scripts and a tsconfig to output the right js for my node version at the start of a project, I barely interact with them.

I think it's more like 80% of time at the start of any project, and then trickles down to no time, then up to 80% again when there's a new feature/config/incompatibility with tooling. In larger projects and in orgs, you often have legacy choices that you have to deal with, that you can't remove or spend time replacing.

With all due respect, that measurement doesn't make a lot of sense! I spend 100% of my time waiting for my editor to open at the start of the day :)