We used Grapelli at a previous $WORK, and regretted it. It has compatibility issues, makes it harder to write custom widgets, and doesn't actually look that good IMO. Was also hard to switch off of.
Yup, been there too. Like others have mentioned, I've learned that spending time to build custom functionality with proper CBVs often ends up being a more sustainable approach in the long run
I've only been writing Django professionally for the past month and I've already bumped into some situations where [3rd party tool] was a terrible idea because it had compatibility issues or the project was no longer maintained. I'm already determined to just stick to core Django functionality and write everything else I need as minimally as possible myself.
There are a handful of libraries written by core Django developers that can be beneficial given their intimate knowledge of the framework and how those packages tend to fit neatly (often before being outright integrated into the core)