As much as people bemoan the complexity of Webpack, it's far superior to the (IMO) spaghetti code of gulp that inevitably results. I'll choose Webpack and npm scripts every time.

Today, I would probably choose something higher level than meddling around with Webpack directly.

Check out https://parceljs.org/.

It's how I start every project. I can always move to Webpack if I need more customization and complexity.

I was thinking about more integrated solutions like Next.js or Expo.

For smaller projects I agree. For larger projects, it's worth spending an hour or two on a custom Webpack config tuned to the project's needs IMO. In most cases it doesn't even take nearly that long.