You're not missing anything. Redux made sense when component state was a nightmare, but Context + hooks + Query solved most problems it was solving. I've watched teams add it out of habit, not need.
That said, I've hit situations where Redux clicks: when the same state mutation needs to happen from five different places in your app's lifecycle, and the order matters. Redux's devtools time-travel debugging saved me hours on a gnarly race condition.
For most projects though, your instinct is right. Start with local state. Pull in Query. Only reach for Redux if you're actually modeling complex state machines, not just "show loading spinner".