This hasn't been my experience. 10 to 15 minutes of looking at React Router's documentation was enough to get started with it. The major version bumps, however, have been a little taxing. If it takes six major releases to get the paradigm right, you should've done more research before moving onto the implementation phase.
A while back I was faced with using whatever god-awful backwards-incompatible version of react-router to use, or instead to go for a routing solution that wasn't as insane. I don't remember what I picked, but I think it was page.js. Something that's been around forever. It was astounding to me how much it simplified the whole project. I truly can't figure out what react-router actually brings to the table, considering it's version history, compared to the myriad of alternatives.
The SPA pattern is fine, it is React Router and Redux that has overcomplicated things.
Here's an example of an app written using the MVC pattern that is way simpler than the React stack: https://github.com/Rajeev-K/eureka
It uses two very simple libs:
A 500-line router: https://github.com/Rajeev-K/mvc-router/
A 200-line templating library that uses JSX syntax: https://github.com/wisercoder/uibuilder/