The approach of using a compiler instead of a framework makes a lot of sense and I personally believe it's the best way forward.
I recommend watching the talk here; https://svelte.dev/blog/svelte-3-rethinking-reactivity
I've used Vue, React, Preact, Mithril, Inferno, Imba, and Angular for the past 6 years. I started doing front end in the late 90s btw.
I tried Svelte for a small project last year and liked it. A couple of weeks ago I evaluated it more seriously and decided to go with it for my current big project.
I was initially attracted to Svelte by the performance and small bundle sizes but was concerned about all the custom syntax, single file components, and the pragmatic magical approach. But oh boy after using it for a couple of days you become super productive really fast. I think this is actually its best feature.
It's essentially a similar tradeoff as in AOT vs JIT. Even though AOT brings the compilation step forward, JIT would have much more runtime context for better performance.
Reacts needs Suspense because it's quite slow and bloated in comparison.
See this video Rich Harris made when comparing a visualization use case:
I agree, I wish it wasn't an entire framework though and more of a front-end library like react. I've learnt long ago not to invest too much into a single tool.
Svelte can target web components, which allows you to use it in just a portion of a web page, just like react.