Thus there was no way around Webpack Yarn or any other helping tool for JS until now.
Now we have importmaps and good support in browsers for east least ES6 (https://caniuse.com/?search=es6) thus there is almost no need for extra tooling so you can write modern JS.
I don't disagree, but also front-end was a mess for a long time.
Now Rails (with Rails 7.1 + Hotwired + Importmaps) is a pleasure to work with.
But we had to wait for good support in browsers of at least ES6 + Import Maps.
See the date of this article here: https://web.dev/import-maps-in-all-modern-browsers/ -> 28 March 2023 announcing importmaps is available on all modern browsers.
Thus there was no way around Webpack Yarn or any other helping tool for JS until now.
Now we have importmaps and good support in browsers for east least ES6 (https://caniuse.com/?search=es6) thus there is almost no need for extra tooling so you can write modern JS.