[chrsjxn]

I really struggle to understand how someone with fundamental programming knowledge and the relevant HTML/CSS skills could run into issues like this without some serious mental blocks.

The HTML and CSS are going to be the same. Any UI state or side effects you're managing with React has to be managed in your htmx endpoints, and stateful APIs have plenty of their own quirks. You're doing the same stuff!

I can certainly understand how modern JS frameworks are harder for someone without a non-framework JS background, since the frameworks are a pretty clear evolution of how JS based web applications have been built for many years. But suggesting that developers pick React to inflate head counts and calling it "the hell-stack" makes it hard for me to think the author is engaging in good faith.