I will be the devil's advocate on this one. While I agree that things have definitely got out of hand in front-end dev, these days, I also think it comes down to how you implement your stack.
For example, if you just use React/Redux and something like Babel for transpiring, this is still a fairly simple stack.
However , what kills me is when developers then tack on a plugin/library/dependency for every problem they have in their app. Form validation, routing, formatting, responsive, AJAX, etc, etc.
I think if we stick as closely to the core of the stacks we choose to employ, then this becomes manageable. You may have to do more work, but there is less to keep track of and fewer opportunities for random changes to a package wrecking your project.