In short, the OP changed the architecture from a client-side rendered app (in React) to a server-side rendered one (built on a custom-made framework cloned from Intercooler.js) and that resulted in a significant performance improvement for their app.

Overall not a good critique of React as such to justify the "throwing away React" title in the front page of HN. In fact, not a lot of good conclusions can be drawn from the read. Maybe just "if YOU build/find YOUR own framework for YOUR problem space excitement will follow."

On the other hand, I doubt the complexity issues, also mentioned by the OP throughout the article, was solved by using the new framework. In fact:

> On the developer side, I think React is better still

So tit-for-tat.