MacBook Pro 2017 daisy-chaining with DisplayPort
No, there's no third party driver or other software available to make this work. You say this is the way it was intended to work, but as far as Apple's documentation goes, it is not intended to work this way on macOS. MST is simply not supported, and you'll need to use Thunderbolt 3 for display chaining.
You do not need a 200 pound dock in order to use multiple monitors and power the MacBook. Various smaller and larger docks in different price ranges exist for Thunderbolt 3. Usually they have a combination of a Thunderbolt 3 port and a DisplayPort or HDMI port for connecting two monitors simultaneously.