Webpack has a reputation that was deserved in early versions. More recently it's not so bad unless you have very specific needs. If all you're doing is building a standard app from things like JS or TS, a CSS processor, and maybe a framework you probably won't need more than half a dozen lines of config that you can paste from Webpack or your framework's docs.
What does your 1000 line webpack config do?? I think part of the problem with webpack is it gives users the freedom to create 1000 line configs even though they’d be fine with a smaller more simple config
Problem with webpack is that freeform JS code is not "configuaration". Configuration presumes set amount of features driven by declarative statement.
Most of what I've seen done "in Webpack" in fact is shitty scripting in an awful language. I'm very happy to see movement away from this criminal waste of everyone's time.
Not gonna get into the details, as it's company proprietary code, but we aren't talking about a weekend project. This is a large, complex product that has a significant user-base, and it also has to handle a bunch of legacy stuff.