I'm not a frontend dev but I came up with this and use it a lot in my userscripts. It's not the most efficient (it can certainly be refactored to create a MutationObserver singleton and then have each call hook into that) but it works well enough for my needs and lets me basically use an old-school to dealing with reactive sites (so long as you are fine with using async):

    function awaitElement(selector) {
        return awaitPredicate(selector, _ => true);
    }

    function awaitPredicate(selector, predicate) {
        return new Promise((resolve, _reject) => {
            for (const el of document.querySelectorAll(selector)) {
                if (predicate(el)) {
                    resolve(el);
                    return;
                }
            }

            // Create a MutationObserver to listen for changes
            const observer = new MutationObserver((_mutations, obs) => {
                // You could search just inside _mutations instead of the entire DOM.
                // Efficiency will depend primarily on how precise your selector is.
                for (const el of document.querySelectorAll(selector)) {
                    if (predicate(el)) {
                        resolve(el);
                        obs.disconnect(); // Don't forget to disconnect the observer!
                        break;
                    }
                }
            });

            // Start observing the document
            observer.observe(document.documentElement, {
                childList: true,
                subtree: true,
                attributes: false,
                characterData: false,
            });
        });
    }

It's easier to write with LLMs. One-off projects (the way I treat userscripts) is where they really shine.

Oh the horrible things I do with Instagram...

I often go for `setInterval` over `MutationObserver` because it works and I don't need instant reactivity and I don't have to think too much about it.

Very true. I guess that depends on what websites you find issues with? I just checked mine and all of those are quality of life improvements for fully server rendered sites like HN or phpBB forums.