Maybe the team is a bunch of n00bs, so what? Wouldn't the perfect framework/language make it hard[er] to screw things up regardless of the lack of dev skill? For a big multi-year project it often strikes me that the best tools are those which are old, boring, and unlikely to change.

That being said, huge-multi-year development in _any_ js framework seems terrifying to me because of the churn in the general js/browser environment.

Also: I think the author doesn't cover this a lot, but it sounds like they REALLY saved their bacon by doing the boring due-diligence of carefully documenting the decision process behind all the choices they made. They probably would have had slowdowns and surprises and roadblocks no matter what, but someone's still got a job because they took time to get it in writing.