Just for the opposite perspective, I started using React when hooks came out and I love them. I can write the classes, I often have to for job interviews, but I think they’re a messy abstraction.

Hooks just match the way the React runtime works. Classes are just way easier to do weird bad stuff with. I’m not sure I would ever choose React if it was still class based. I’d use Ember probably which gives you more with the class-oriented API. Without the simplified control flow of hooks, I don’t see what React even offers over Ember or Vue.