Actually, no. I started working in React about two years ago and if anything, I think the ecosystem in the OP map has stabilised somewhat. I think that SASS use is starting to fade and grid layout is now a thing but not like the whole gulp to grunt to webpack thing. Plus create-react-app makes starting easier.

What frustrated me is that management had no idea of all the bases you needed to cover and expected me to be a backend dev and performant in Java, Spring, Elasticsearch and a whole variety of other things in Java land.

React has been around for five years now. JS ecosystem change fatigue articles and comments are what's really going out of style. ;-)