Of course, Create React App is the best place to start, and I totally agree with your points. I never said learning these tools are the basics. But if you need to setup a bigger project CRA doesn't cut it by default.

For example, it is missing HMR and CSS preprocessing (or postporcessing) which are must have on a larger scale. Again, you can eject and start from there, but in that case it will be much easier if you understand these tools.

Thank you for the constructive feedback!