The thing is, (at least personally I feel) JavaScript isn't the problem. The problem is because of the lack of tools people have leaned into doing everything with JS, instead of trying to manage the awkward 50-50 split we had before. If 95% could be done with HTML++, then a couple form customizations and a bit of business logic being done with 100 lines of JS would make sense and not be as horrible as the modern web.