Prior to React, we were using Backbone, Handlebars and jQuery. It was horrible. Logic was put into Handlebars templates, Backbone models created an unnecessary abstraction, we had to setup our own event handlers for every model -> view change. It just didn't work. JSX solved all these problems.

Frontend-state management with React is not complicated. There is a current trend to trash React because of its perceived complexity. Take it from an experienced React developer- it's easy and fun. Hooks are a short syntactic sugar over its lifecycle methods. Once you learn hooks, there isn't much more to learn.

I'm not sure where you are in your career now, but I recommend that you give React another chance, and avoid jumping on the bandwagon to hate on React. It's solved so many problems for me and allowed me to actually enjoy my job as a software developer.