Bootstrap can absolutely grow beyond its clichéd defaults. Use the SCSS version, import after setting SCSS variables to remove border radii/set a custom $primary color/use a custom font, swap out FontAwesome for something like streamlinehq.com, and you suddenly have a modern-feeling website. It's an excellent place to start, even in 2021.

Back in the internet explorer times bootstrap was invaluable. Even if you were very good at CSS you just needed a different set of rules for ie.

You might be interested in tailwind. I'm unsure how to explain it, but it is a pleasure to use once you get used to it.

The key difference between tailwind and something like Pico is the semantics. Tailwind (AFAIK) totally divorces semantics and styles, so you as the dev have to apply everything. Pico aims to use as much of the HTML's semantics as possible, so you have to apply less yourself.

Personally, I love the semantic value of a well-structured HTML document, but both approaches definitely have their advantages.

It brings a certain immediacy and malleability which feel very empowering and eliminates the cost of naming things.

At the price of a verbose class soup everywhere.

I can’t bear to look at the soup so I don’t use it much.

Yes, IMO you're saving time if you designed in your use of the framework and properly leveraged it toward saving time. I built a Skeleton site almost 10 years ago. Do I want to put in a new framework now? No way. Do I feel like using skeleton now? Meh, nope. But do I need to update the site? Also nope! Because of the original plan--do about a month of work and then make future updates meet a minimum bar to qualify site design changes. I didn't feel like it was a maintenance gamble at all.

IMO you can plan for the most likely course of long-term maintenance, choose a framework that matches, and be in a much better position. Especially if your site can quickly leverage the often nasty stuff like accessible form or menu frameworks, or modals.

Plus, it's really not that hard to override most old frameworky parts for changes that work well enough. Details involved, yes. But clever solutions are really abundant at various levels. This is also why "elegance" in frameworks is a thing.

Yeah frameworks are terrible, But tailwind is amazing. once you get your config set up you chern out templates/designs. there is no fighting to override stuff either.

Nobody's forcing (hopefully) you to override bootstrap. Embrace constraints and focus on building the features that are unique to the business. It is unlikely innovating on UI is core to the business.

If you apply inverted triangle css you apply general styles at first and then bring in more detail when needed.

ITCSS makes you think and work with the cascade resulting in almost never reverting anything. Super efficient.

Why does this need a name? Isn't the C in CSS enough? Serious question, this seems to be exactly how CSS was designed to function.

So this "inverted triangle CSS" is normal CSS as intended, then?