i have been setting up these react/ts/etc project with vite or next.js, just fine , i think you're underestimating how much progress happened in other tooling as well
Idk about next 15 but you can literally bootsrap next 13 using a single index.tsx with typescript & next being the only 2 dependencies in package.json. No typescript is fine too.
It's not new, has been the case for a few years, so honestly I don't get people complaining about next's complexity.
It's not new, has been the case for a few years, so honestly I don't get people complaining about next's complexity.