Must-use libraries

After some years I return to make a react native project and I am wondering which libraries to use.
First I am not sure about expo.
On my first project I tried expo but ran into some issues with another popular library (can't remember which one). Therefore I dropped expo by starting all over. Whats the state on this? Are there know issues? How about ejecting?

Next is the UI Library. I used to stick to react native paper, because I like MUI, but customizations were not pleasant. I looked into native base and react native elements, but could not make out their optimal use-cases. How much do I get out of the box? Is it easy to customize components? What are the benefits of one or the other?

At last I am looking into Redux. In my first project I thought I don't need it, but state management was worse than expected and I switched to Redux. Although it was overkill. Are there good alternatives or would you go with Redux no matter what?

Feel free to suggest other libraries which I might have missed