You see unnecessary bloat, I see wheel reinventions. Unpoly gives me almost everything I need for any non trivial app. Same thinking about using Django/Rails/Laravel vs bare bone routers like express, Sinatra or flask.

Once you get past the simple landing page or hello world app all those things you call “bloat” come in super handy. Otherwise you end up with a custom undocumented untested unproven probably insecure rushed out implementation of what the “bloated” solution gives you. Same applies for Unpoly vs htmx. Unless you’re building just a hello world landing page, as I said.