Server side rendering and static site generation is so simple, what the blazes does all this nonsense even do that just writing it would not?

And honestly, when people talk about it being "more productive" and "maintainable" code I really have to wonder what the blazes is in the kool aid.

But then when people talk about "tedious DOM manipulation" I'm equally clueless as to what you even mean, given the DOM is so piss simple if you ACTUALLY use it. Just like the whole "state" nonsense where you basically make a giant copy (or multiples) for NOTHING! Hence concepts like "UI sychronization" that one wouldn't even have to worry about if they stopped with the "Virtual DOM" rubbish, "state" based memory wasting bloat, and all the other nonsensical ways people slop out as much if not more code than they'd have WITHOUT the dumbass frameworks.

Of course, people using nonsense lke JSX, constantly getting elements by selector/id/class, etc, etc, is NOT working with the DOM. Such coders in all likelihood never even having HEARD of walking the DOM; much less being incapable of even making their own make/create... meaning they're unqualified to even recognize if React's approach to same is any good.

That you basically need a precompiler for it to generate such, it's not good... not at all. And why? Because they pack everyone full of the lie that the DOM is "hard to use" so they replicate everything wrong with HTML 3.2 using JSX? /FAIL/ hard. Joe forbid we have separation of concerns.

The only thing I have trouble wrapping my head around are the claims about it, which seem to be 100% grade A fiction based entirely in an ignorance of how to use HTML, CSS, or JavaScript properly.

Mind you, I don't mean ignorance as an insult there, it just means not knowing any better. You can fix ignorant.

Over the past decade of accessibility and efficiency consulting I've never seen ANYTHING built with React, Vue, or Angular that I didn't have to rip out wholesale or start over from scratch with just to fix what's screwing my clients... because these systems are convoluted, pointless, and riddled with bad practices; where the only way I can see anyone saying something good about them is that they've swallowed the propaganda hook, line, sinker, and a bit o' the rod!