Huh? lit-html uses standard JavaScript. That's it. JSX is a non-standard extension. So yes it is more standard than a non-standard, and lit-html runs directly in browsers without any transpilation while JSX very much doesn't.

VS Code is as able to analyze lit-html templates as well as JSX via the lit-plugin extensions. It gives you type-checking, code completion, hover-over docs, and linting.