At first, only devils used JavaScript. Then jQuery/AJAX/Web2.0 made it permissible for it to be used for good. Then Apple killed Flash. Clients and employers still demanded fancy web sites that weren't just hypertext and images. Browsers still only supported JavaScript. Node and npm enabled front-end devs to build and share. All the tiny problems that front-end devs used to deal with, like minor browser incompatibilities, were papered over with layers and layers of abstractions until they naturally ended up with frameworks like React/Vue/Angular. Then the cart came before the horse, and there has only been incremental progress since then because JavaScript is still JavaScript, and the ecosystem is too big to escape.
Anyone who tries to avoid the complexity of the existing front-end tooling soon finds themselves reinventing many many wheels.
Anyone who tries to avoid the complexity of the existing front-end tooling soon finds themselves reinventing many many wheels.