As an alternative to helix, there are lots of preconfigured/opinionated vim/neovim setups. Lunarvim (my choice), chadvim (I think is the name), and more.
All the benefits of the vim plugins etc. With sane defaults. You still have to take time learning everything, and I would probably recommend spending time with configuring a vanilla neovin config to understand how it works then jumping into one of these later, but I’ve found it saves a lot of time configuring and gives you a fantastic starting point.
That’s valid, especially the complexity issue. Everything mostly works, until it doesn’t. And if you have some sort of dep issue or otherwise, you’re now combing through lots of scripts to try to narrow it down and fix it unless you wait for an update.
Personally still find I have saved a lot of time using a preconfiged setup, though everyone could have different experiences.