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It's a valid use case. Think of something like a thumbnail generator for a directory of images. If you include an image in your application, maybe you also want to be easily pull in a thumbnail for it on a different summary page in your app.

This sounds more like a build tool than a code "packing" tool...

In the context of webapps I'm not sure there's much of a distinction...

Take a look at how many crazy variations of a favicon image you need now to satisfy iOS/Android/Microsoft desires.

Don't think so: see webpack as a builder if that makes more sense. People are using it in place of npm scripts or for example gulp.

Which really is an anti-pattern IMO - but seeing people repeat the same mistakes with new tools over and over is not new I guess - but it is extremely powerful.