Maven is wonderful. It's the opposite of complicated. You declare the artifactId, "groupId" and version of your project. You declare those same values for your dependencies. And then it Just Works. When you want to release, you invoke the release plugin, and it will do all the right things. If you want a test coverage analysis, you invoke a suitable plugin (e.g. emma) and it'll do the right things. It is, hands down, the best build system I have ever used, in any language.

The problem comes because everyone thinks their build is a special snowflake that absolutely needs to replace every instance of the number 15 in their codebase with a heart symbol. No. You don't do that. If you're doing something standard there will be a plugin for it. If there isn't, it's probably because what you want to do is a very bad idea - do it in code instead. If you absolutely insist, you're going to have to write a plugin, which at least means you'll follow coding standards, have test coverage, and all the rest of it, rather than just sticking random unreviewed crap into your build like happens in every other build system.