I can’t let you bury React this way after all the happiness it gave these 5 years 🙂

Actually, if React is loved so much is because it CAN stick with your software architecture without forcing you to follow an opinionated model.

This enable your team to build the exact product that fit to its needs and pretty simple to understand for any javascript developer. (While I doubt jquery is)

I agree with you than each React project is different, and this is very nice since you’ll never sell a “React project" to someone that actually use it, but an application.

I also agree than less skilled managers may choose it for its buzzemotionnal value, and again it’s a nice thing that bad decisions could actually lead to good results if tech team has adaptable tools.

You have a point that if you hire someone on a “react project" you may do a mistake, the team could spend months to teach their way of doing to the new comers and this could be really uncomfortable if you are a freelancer looking for a short mission, but it makes a lot of sense for larger organizations building and maintaining core products with an internal team of developers who choose to grow with their organization while tailoring the best asset.

From my previous experience with React, I would say you should more focus on using it to build a whole asset rather than a one shot for some projects you dispatch from a team to another, I understand React may be a frustrating choose if you do IT at the project level but I would definitely use it if I had to create another software asset that should last and evolve for 10 years.