I was here for all the discussions about how React went against the idea of mixing html and js, but once I started using it and grokking how that wasn't really the case, I found React to be so much more pleasant than what had come before. I mean, I still avoid it if I can, but that's not React's fault.

The fact that most front-end frameworks implement some kind of React-ish approach should at the very least make you wonder if dismissing it as 'cool-kiddery' is perhaps a bit too broad a swipe.

With Tailwind, at first I had similar concerns. I used it a bit and it seemed okay, but went back to the good old fashioned way of doing things. Then, in a later project, I decided to give it a proper shot and it measurably increases my productivity, reduces complexity, and reading articles about why it's not 'separation of concerns' (in many cases) convinced me I had no real basis for being against it other than being a curmudgeonly old-skool guy.

It's totally fair to stick with what works for you, but perhaps dismissing both React and Tailwind as 'cool-kiddery' is more a 'stuck in your ways and insecure enough to need to justify it' kind of thing than it is a reasonable perspective. Sometimes new things /are/ better!