But there is a wide gulf between backend + JQuery and SPA. The frustration often shown is people treating the extremes as the only options available. Having a use case for which backend + jQuery doesn't cut it doesn't require reinventing navigation state and history in JS, or loading every stat on the page via JSON. There are middle grounds.
What middle ground do you propose that's as efficient to get rolling as React in 2024? You talk about not reinventing state and history in JS, but at this point the reinvention is already done and React is the pragmatic choice that you pick when you don't want to reinvent the frontend.
There are a bunch of stacks that I prefer to work in for my own projects, but what I need at work is almost always the standard option that everyone is already used to.
