> you also need to find and install plugins (loaders) for various file types, and those plugins need to be configured as well

No, you don't _need_ to find and install plugins, unless you need it because you're going further beyond than the core use case of webpack.

You're comparing two tools that have different focuses and compare them on the axis of "working out of the box" which some specific use case in mind. Parcel might work out of the box for React, because it was created to provide that experience. Webpack wasn't created for that, but to provide customizations for its users. Of course Parcel is gonna be better at providing that experience

I actually still have zero idea how webpack configs and plugins really work. I just end up in a nested soup of config options where nothing really seems to be the same if it's defined at a different level. It eventually just randomly works. Every new plugin results in the order of things being randomly changed until it works again. It's bizarre. Truly unpleasant from an epistemological point of view - I want to understand but cannot.