"simpler" is not how I remember foobar2000. I used to use it (±15 years ago) because of its extreme configurability (e.g. in terms of layout). Configuring foobar2000 felt kind of like building your own music player. YMMV
IIRC, they were in a sort of PHP-looking scripting language? I had very little coding experience before then, so it was kind of a trip trying to debug why the lyrics panel would freak out under certain scenarios :D
I'm still using it to this day, with little more than an album tree, a playlist window, and an album art thumbnail that optionally all fold away.
I've been down the configuration | plugin trail, good fun for those of us that enjoy that kind of thing but it is | was simple and clean from a fresh install.