I'm sorry, but that's just not fair comparison. You requested a minimal example and then pick the simplest one and tell me that you can implement this minimal example with minimal code. Of course you can fill a div with a random number with Vanilla JS, it can even be just a one liner, but it's not the point.
Your solution, for example, will break if the target div already has content in it. It also won't work if we want to insert the content after or before the element, you need to somehow keep track of the element being triggered, so it will grow more complex.
And still, it won't work with custom events
> No need to bring up multiple examples. We just need one to show that htmx makes something simpler.
This approach is not productive. A single example could be easily dismissed on the ground that it's not enough to justify design decisions that htmx has. I wrote multiple examples and provided additional links specifically to show various use cases that htmx covers and to avoid playing ping-pong of tiny examples.
> This isn't one though.
You just picked one example, which also happened to be the simplest, and seemingly ignored everything else. I apologize, I don't know how to continue from here.