Literally not one person said XSLT can't do it. But in case you missed it somebody did said React can't do it and so XSLT is better.

> build step with React and webpack and javascript absolutely required on the client-side

This was a false statement.

both XSLT and React can be used for this except React can additionally do a bunch of other stuff that does use JS and that XSLT can't do.