https://discuss.asciidoctor.org/Best-asciidoc-pipeline-tp7090p7094.html
Frankie,
This is a community run project and the volunteers in this community work very hard to keep the ecosystem up to date. So just saying "nightmare" is not only unhelpful, it also disrespects the tremendous work this community does on this project. If you're willing to share your specific problems, you'll find the members of this community are very open to lending you a hand. That's how we operate. It's the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Both the Asciidoctor Gradle plugin and Asciidoctor Maven plugin have been receiving heavy development over the course of the last year. I'd say these plugins are better now as an AsciiDoc pipeline than they've ever been in the past.
Added to that mix is Antora, which is a newer pipeline for creating documentation sites from AsciiDoc. It's significant because the patterns used there will likely be incorporated back into the Java-based build plugins. However, it doesn't yet offer EPUB3 or PDF output (without using additional tools).
It's true that the example projects need to be updated. If you give feedback on those projects, it could help move the effort along. I think there was a pause to let people transition to the new versions before switching the examples over, but I think that we've past the point where we need to wait.
Best,
-Dan