I can’t understand what you mean by the Vue or React apps being insufficient if there’s a backend. What else would they be except an interface to an API?
Te output having to land somewhere. (More than half?) the time pushing dist/ files to a static host won't cut it, even for an MVP. From the beginning, the quickstart tools and workflow become a burden. Cases vary widely, here's mine:
With create-react-app, I don't want to use the included index.html / default dev-server config. I'd be using django-webpack-loader to load the webpack entrypoints. That requires webpack-bundle-tracker [1]
In my case, it'd also involve compiling via webpack, collecting static files and pushing them to S3.
[1] To be fair, you could use https://github.com/timarney/react-app-rewired to add it.