Agreed, I'm not even convinced you need anything async here. In that sense you could probably write this with OS threads and you language of choice.
In the JVM world I am always seeing people screwing around with Actors and things like that and failing and then after days of suffering I break out some simple Executor and I have it working correctly in 10 minutes and performance tuned in another 10.
Look at the example of the LMAX Disruptor to see how adults face reality and develop real solutions instead of snake oil.
I like ReactiveX because it provides a way for thinking about these things that is cross language
So, it can happen but does rarely enough to arouse strong skepticism. I usually don't buy it.