According to my research, at some point NextJS made static site generation a breeze. That's no longer the case. Everyone behind NextJS has invested time and money into building platforms, frameworks, and tools for developers. They should be able to make a return on their investments. As a result they are highly incentivized to drive people to build dynamic sites that could be hosted on Vercel.

A cynic might say they are incentivized to make static site generation a bit of a pain.

Good enough

Even if NextJS static site generation is more of a pain, it's still good enough for me. The underlying tech doesn't really matter. I'm able to accomplish my goals so I'm not going to complain.