Frameworks are also about comprehensiveness. The start of the learning curve is not the sine qua non. That always reminds me of those complaints that writing a "Hello World" application in your GUI library of choice requires plenty of boiler plate etc., but you're probably not going to spend your developer life doing that. Often benefits for larger apps aren't obvious for the neophyte.

This is really aggravated that -- as opposed to native GUI libraries -- frontend requirements vary wildly. You might just need it to embellish some elements (i.e. the jquery level), you might also use it to build some large desktop app replacement.

Which is why I take most comparisons with a large grain of salt. In this regard, "JS framework XYZ sucks/rules" is the new "PHP is great/awful".