> People want and expect pretty and interactive experiences.

Counterpoint: a majority of websites are for business where they want the form to submit and update the database.

And to me, pretty = CSS + removing full refreshes, which is what HTMX does.

With a little creativity, HTMX can enable some extremely UX-friendly interactive sites. Keep in mind that it makes it trivially easy to entirely swap out small, or large, sections of a web page. So things that used to be standard boring forms can be interactive step-by-step pathways that adapt to the user's selections. Very easy to deliver progress updates and validation cues to users that seem to appear magically without page reloads. It's still early but HTMX continually inspires me (a poor designer) to execute new UI ideas because it makes it very simple to conceptualize how they can be built (and simple to actually build). Tailwind is also essential in this process, for me.

Sure, I'm just suggesting that "best bang for the buck" may well not be React/etc, because it's a lot more "bucks" for often not much more "bang".