Well, I think a lot of people (developers at least) associate SPA-type web applications with smoother transitions, etc.

I agree with you to an extent: I've had some very bad experiences with javascript applications as well, but the general sentiment is (reasonably, in my opinion) that a well done SPA will feel smoother than a well done MPA

W/ htmx or similar libraries like unpoly or hotwire, you can close this gap. The big difference is the ability to update partial bits of HTML, rather than needing to do a full page refresh.

As a predominantly (hobbyist) systems developer, the pervasiveness of NPM is a major detractor for website development.

I have done a few Angular and React apps to keep the skills sharp. The imposed workflow for the power is an interesting set of tradeoffs, never mind the magic and amount of decisions you need to make to use both.

Add on top of that the rest of npm, nvm, css compilers, the various css toolkits for layout, and the rest and it just feels so complicated, even for the most basic page which needs to pull in some data over an api.

It doesn't seem to be getting any simpler.

Lets say you want something as simple as a table-of-contents. If you're doing HTML, you gotta render this yourself. In Wordpress or webpage generators like Jekyll or Hugo, table-of-contents generated from H1 / H2 headers is basically just one line.

Lets say you want to sort all your posts by date and paginate the results (say, 20 results per page or something), as per typical blogging patterns. That's a lot of HTML cruft you gotta make for this to happen. Meanwhile, Wordpress / Jekyll / Hugo (etc. etc.) do this all automatically for you.

I don't think it matters what generates the page. Wordpress/etc could generate plain html pages and the author's points would apply equally.

Personally, I prefer html with a little embedded css. It works, it's quick, it's all in one place, and it lets me produce suitably elegant pages.