Nothing is wrong with Backbone. I thought it was beautiful. We don't always pick our tech though. It's part of the problem here; the hype engine is used to steer non-technical people, or more managerial technical people. While the engineers and technical leads might be completely comfortable; the next project starts and you are told it should use X since that is what the client kept mentioning when they called.

Also, some people love this. It means they can show up at work and talk about how they learned React and it's better and they can do a pretty good job of using the hype train to stand out from their peers.