I hated haml when I first saw it ... decade-ish ago? Hate it still. My current company uses it as a dying vestige of when _why and haml and hpricot were all the rage in ruby land.
I'd say it was a similar case with Tailwind. I considered that everyone that was loving it was not thinking about the future, and I wouldn't make the effort to give it a proper go. Yet, I can't imagine working without Tailwind now.
Moral of the story: some tech seems odd and useless in the beginning; however, if there's enough love and die-hard fans around it, maybe there's something in it.