Not really, no. It is similar but worse than Maven in that it requires quite a bit of time investment to configure, and shares the drawback of Gradle that it is configured in a programming language instead of a configuration language.

Switching out Maven for a larger maintenance burden might be reasonable in a large organisation that is swimming in competent employees, but most do not.

As for obvious contender, I'd say that would be Gradle, which is harder to get someone started with than Maven and due to the DSL allows you to invent weirder footguns.

Did everyone just agree to forget about Gradle? It was everywhere not too long ago. I think I even prefer it to Maven, in a choice between a rock and a hard place type of way.

I don't think so, but the pain points have become more widely known and taken the edge off the hype.