> large, open questions on basic stuff.
I've commented on this subject before[0], I think the past few years of web development has largely been about answering basic questions. Now there are well tested answers to those questions. I'm sure people will still reinvent these wheels, but now you don't have to when working on a large project.
Babel, Webpack et al are more useful when you're building a web-app, something generally comparable to a native app. The toolchain is complex, sure, but no more complex than what xcode or Android Studio do for you. I think the difference is that this has been a community effort, rather than a corporation assembling a product, so a) there are more people sharing opinions and b) the disagreements and exploration has been more public.