> JSX is far more pleasant to read and write than the native function call syntax
No, it isn't. XML is both hard to read and write. It's for machines, not humans. Besides that, mixing two languages with two very different syntactic structures together is a recipe for disaster. And besides that, you now need an additional compilation step because it's not plain JavaScript. What works much better is something like Mithril's templating API, which is concise and pure JavaScript.
jsx is just more natural for designers but i agree with the gp that the benefits can be obtained with plain declarative js and avoid all the tooling required for jsx.
Most developers have never used a virtual-dom library, especially those that find JSX offensive. Your sales pitch for your library is coming off pretty aggressive, and it's a bit off topic. No one is talking about render speed.
That's a very accurate observation and it's a very strong argument against React.
As a result, old advice about separating code from templates does not apply. Combining code and templates is the right thing to do in React, and JSX is far more pleasant to read and write than the native function call syntax, which is still available if you really don't like JSX.
If you haven't tried it, you should.