I feel the same way. If I wouldn't have stumbled over Ansible 6-7 years ago I would have left the industry already. I don't mind complexity in general but I feel it should be in line with company needs. And k8s often isn't.
You are right, FreeBSD jails, lxc, etc are great technologies. It's k8s and related topis I have my issues with.
Do you regret leaving the industry?
I have invested a lot of effort into my career and it would feel kind of stupid to give up on it because I have some issues with today's industry trend. On the other hand you are right, k8s is the technical side of a people problem in the industry. While I'm hopeful that things around k8s will settle on the long run, I'm pessimistic that the cargo cult and believe in easy answers to complex problems will disappear any time soon.