> Web development is bizarre and overly complex

I would amend this and say, "in the wrong hands, and with insufficient experience, Web development is bizarre and overly complex"

Yes granted, there's loads of competing frameworks and technologies but I've worked with experienced web developers who can read through the marketing, understand the problems they are solving and just get stuff done.

You’re simply saying it’s not so complex to render it completely unusable. I’m not saying that either.

The question is, “Can it be simpler and maintain its effectiveness?” If yes, then it’s unnecessarily complex.

In many cases, yes. But it’s still possible to create a simple site using e.g. Hugo. Or plain HTML. I did, and it’s very rewarding!