I agree with you. Every now and then I see mentions of "all-new-regex-builder" on HN frontpage. What is up with regex and desire to write wrappers upon wrappers on top of it?

I see regex like that: if you have to use it often enough, better to learn it as it is - will be more helpful in the long run. If you don't use regex too often then just google your question - there's a very high chance that somebody already wrote regex for your or similar problem.

Only tools I ever use are regex testers (like regexr.com) when I need to make sure that pattern works correctly.