Hi Jon
I completely agree, i started out with APEX back in 2004 and the great thing about APEX now in 2022 is the fact that you can build applications very fast both in low and high end of complexity. And people new to apex can be able to produce nice app following the wizards.
But also you can satisfy more anvanced and complex needs also at a higher level using many javascripts api and custom setup aslo.
So yes APEX and Oracle OCI is dynamite these days, and lot more features is coming up in the road with FOEX team also in the Apex developer team now :-)