That would also require browser creators to be consistent in implementation
& you still have the "relying on people to update things" problem where it could be years after a new feature is introduced until it's widely enough supported to be useful
I do tend to agree there are plenty of poor implementations and convoluted JavaScript contraptions. Afaik there's plenty of standardized solutions to keep back button functionality with dynamic content and afaik the popular web frameworks support that out of the box.
Are they actually seething? I've read the top comments on this post and don't see much that I'd describe as seething, just some people who bring up valid points about browser support.
Also two separate times in the last year I've had to help a team that's using traditional MVC with no JS at all, and now they have a feature that can only be done with JS. But they have an entire dev team and no one knows JS at all. They don't even know where to start, so they're calling me in to help them retrofit it in at great expense. It would have been cheaper to just use JS from the start, and they have to pay for that mistake.
Sadly this is lost on a lot of folks here. We're not using JS out of ignorance, we're using it out of necessity. We don't build react front ends for CRUD because it's inherently better to browse with curl, we do it because it's currently the most effective way to meet the needs of the business. The goals of the business rarely align with the goals of opinionated technologists, but that hardly is grounds for the level of scorn I see from that crowd.