> templating languages are horrible and stuck in 2005. An underrated pro of react [1] + typescript is that you get to write your UI logic in regular typescript,

Yeah exactly, which is why I always recommend DSLs that embed HTML directly in the language. E.g. https://com-lihaoyi.github.io/scalatags/ or (my own) https://github.com/yawaramin/dream-html

They make writing HTML a breeze with the full power of the programming language available.

> We were doing this the same year that React came out, and clearly had some of the same thoughts as Dan Abramov did

Dan Abramov is not the original creator of React. That was Jordan Walke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW0rj4sNH2w